Research, research!

How do you do research something that doesn’t really exist? (i.e. life on other planets) Do you research space and the space travel we and other countries have done? Or do you make up your own?
I think the thing is that they do exist, to a lesser degree perhaps, on Earth and within our solar system. Cyberius III was based on an earth like planet with an axis similar to Uranus. That is it spins on its side as it moves around the sun. I merely conjectured how this would affect an earth-like planet and researched weather and other effects that were orbit/spin related on earth (such as location of poles and terrain type) and hope that I extrapolated correctly for the conditions on Cyberius III. Being far future, it’s hard to research some of the things that I write and there is a lot of conjecture, but I do what I can to base my fiction on known science. For example my Artifical Gravity generators are based somewhat on this article. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=579 . There is always some fiction in my novels which is so far ahead that there is very little research I can do for it, such as the food synthesizers but most of the things like longevity drugs and even instant teleportation, has at least some documented bona fide research performed on them. And a lot of the weird life I “invent” are adaptations of some of the lifeforms we have in the extreme areas in our planet. 

Do you have any favorite movies/books that warped your brain. led you to write scifi?  If so, what are they?
I love reading and watching science stuff. Both fiction and non-fiction. I grew up on staples like Asimov, Brian Stapleford, E.E. (doc) Adams, etc. as well as fantasy like Tolkien and Lewis Caroll. The warping my brain probably happened when my brother decided that a full frontal lobotomy with a peen hammer was necessary at a very young age. For me, I think writing SF and fantasy became a norm because I loved the freedom of the worlds that people created. Contemporary and historical novels are great, I’ve read and enjoyed many of them, but there are a ton of restraints you have to stick to keep the story realistic and logical.  That no longer exists in the purely speculative fiction.  Writing SF is “flying by your pants without an airplane” lol
Also, why throw romance into the mix?
A long ago challenge. I had a lady on one of my lists, long ago, tell me she’d never buy erotica written by a man because men have no idea what a woman wants. The truth is though, even for hard SF there is always relationship stuff going on. The main difference really is that SF writers don’t aim for the HEA ending. The route of the story itself is, to SF, the main thrust of the novel. Romantic SF is more about what the route is like while aiming for the end.
The book video was great. I agree, I’d love to see your books turned into movies.
Thank you. I’ve just purchased some animation software so in the next one, for Dante 1, I’m hoping to have spaceships that actually fly across the screen. LOL