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"I kind of take it for granted that our great-grandchildren will regard us as a sort of precursor species. That they won't think of us as human and if we could see them, we probably wouldn't think of them as human either."
- William Gibson
 |
| 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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