Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again?
This amazing video popped up in my twitter, sorry, X feed this past week and reminded me just how big Skylab really was. It was recorded in 1973, and shows Alan Bean reveling in weightlessness.
Astronaut Alan Bean enjoying weightlessness in the open space of the orbital workshop on the Skylab space station in 1973. pic.twitter.com/h3IniLVyXU
— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) October 22, 2025
Fans of the 1985 novel Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card may recall the vast battleroom used for training.
They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side. Null gravity was frightening, disorienting; they soon found that things went better if they didn't use their feet at all.
Much earlier, Murray Leinster describes an interior space sometimes used for recreation in his 1931 story The Power Planet:
The observation-room was vast. Two hundred feet across and high, and six hundred feet wide, and practically without a ceiling. All four walls were floor. Here was the center of the Power Planet. Here were the largest of all the ports which look out upon the appalling emptiness which surrounds it. Here, too, were the doors into the needle-like spires which show on all the pictures of the Power Planet — those two-thousand-foot shafts which jut out from its exact center. From the shaft on the sunward side, one may look out over the whole of the bright-side disk. And from the spire on the shadow side one sees exactly nothing, unless the monster searchlights are turned on. They will illuminate the dark side to its farthest edge, though, and are used in case of needed repairs to the outer skin. From the dark-side spire the only thing which shows that the blackness of the disk is not nothingness itself is that faintly luminous streak of pure Power, a hundred yards across, which goes stabbing across illimitable space to the spinning Earth, far-distant...(Read more about the Observation Room Recreation Center.)
George O. Smith describes a similar space in the center of the Venus Equilateral Relay Station in his 1942 story QRM: Interplanetary:
Channing looked up the little flight of stairs that led to the innermost level. He winked at Arden and jumped. He passed up through the opening easily. “Jump,” he commanded. “Don’t use the stairs!”
(Center space from 'QRM: Interplanetary' by George O. Smith)Arden jumped. She sailed upward, and as she passed through the opening, Channing caught her by one arm and stopped her flight. “At that speed you’d go right on across,” he said.
She looked up, and there about two hundred feet overhead she could see the opposite wall.
Channing snapped on the lights. They were in a room two hundred feet in diameter and three hundred feet long. “We’re at the center of the station,” Channing informed her. “Beyond that bulkhead is the air lock. On the other side of the other bulkhead, we have the air plants, the storage spaces, and several cubic inches of machinery.”
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/27/2025)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.' - Harl Vincent, 1931.
Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again?
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.' - Orson Scott Card, 1985.
Reflect Orbital Offers 'Sunlight on Demand' And Light Pollution
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri
'This was their world, their planet —
this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.' - Nat Schachner, 1934
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
Can One Robot Do Many Tasks?
'... with the Master-operator all you have to do is push one! A remarkable achievement!'
Atlas Robot Makes Uncomfortable Movements
'Not like me. A T-1000, advanced prototype. A mimetic poly-alloy. Liquid metal.'
Boring Company Drills Asimov's Single Vehicle Tunnels
'It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
Humanoid Robots Tickle The Ivories
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'
A Remarkable Coincidence
'There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty here...'
Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...'
Perching Ambush Drones
'On the chest of drawers something was perched.'
Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...'
Golf Ball Test Robot Wears Them Out
"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
Boring Company Vegas Loop Like Asimov Said
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
Rigid Metallic Clothing From Science Fiction To You
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
Is The Seattle Ultrasonics C-200 A Heinlein Vibroblade?
'It ain't a vibroblade. It's steel. Messy.'
Roborock Saros Z70 Is A Robot Vacuum With An Arm
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
A Beautiful Visualization Of Compact Food
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
Bone-Building Drug Evenity Approved
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
