7 Awesome Sci-Fi Space Stations

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by Miriam Kramer, Staff Writer for Space.com 2013-08-09 19:36:33 UTC

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From Babylon 5 to Elysium, some of the best science fiction on the big screen has involved a space station.

The pop culture space stations may play integral roles in their plotlines while others merely appear and disappear as needed. But no matter how big or small of a role they play, all of the stations elevate their particular works of fiction to new heights.

SEE ALSO: The 10 Best Sci-Fi Space Stations Ever

For our purposes, space stations are any large structure that can support a colony in orbit around a planetary body or are large enough to stand on their own in deep space. Despite the fact that some ships in science fiction act as stations, they were not included in this list.

Although the Battlestar Galactica ship and the American Airlines space freighters in the movie Silent Running were in the pool of contenders, for example, they fall into the category of "spaceship" and not station. Bases built on the moon, Mars or other cosmic bodies were also left off the list. (Sorry, Space: 1999 and Outland.)

SEE ALSO: A Village in Orbit: Inside NASA's Space Colony Concepts

Click through the gallery above to see SPACE.com's picks for the top sci-fi space stations on TV and in the movies. Did your favorite make the list?

Image: Flickr, Serious Cat

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This article originally published at Space.com here

Topics: Dev & Design, Entertainment, Film, pop culture, space, space station, Television

Space.com is a Mashable publishing partner that is the world's No. 1 source for news of astronomy, skywatching, space exploration, commercial spaceflight and related technologies. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.