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"Everything starts as somebody's daydream. And, when you're daydreaming, it is science fiction. It's when you start work out how you put it together, true science fiction becomes real science."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Space-Helmet | ||
| A 'fishbowl-style' head covering for space explorers. |
This is an early reference to the familiar 'fishbowl' style of space helmet, fortunately constructed of pure glassite, a strong, clear material. Not invulnerable, however; a strong blow from a metal bar would shatter the material.
| Kent and Liggett prepared to don their space-helmets, and before entering the airlock, Kent turned to Krell. |
| Technovelgy from The Sargasso of Space,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Astounding Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Here's some additional descriptive matter:
As far as I know, Hamilton tied with Manly Wade Wellman for the first use of this phrase, in September of 1931:
In space, it is of course important to have a secure seal for your space helmet. Hamilton solved this basic problem in the simplest possible way:
We also have a nice illustration, from the cover of Astounding Science Fiction.
The debris among the pack's wrecks was just as varied, holding fragments of metal, dark meteors of differing size—and many human bodies. Among these were some clad in the insulated space-suits, with their transparent glassite helmets.
He took the glass-fronted space helmet and adjusted it on Thiana's head.
From The Disc-Men of Jupiter, by Manly Wade Wellman.
The airlock's inner door then slid open and the newcomers stepped into the ship's interior, unscrewing their transparent helmets as they did so.
('transparent glassite helmets' from Sargasso of Space)
Manly Wade Wellman is usually credited with the creation of the phrase "space helmet" in his novella The Disc-Men of Jupiter. However, since both stories were published in September of 1931, I'd call it a tie, wouldn't you?
Compare with the transparent dome helmet from The Man from the Atom (1926) by G. Peyton Wertenbaker.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Sargasso of Space
More Ideas
and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
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'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
