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"Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Planets Made Habitable | ||
| A plan to "terraform" a planet to improve its habitability by human beings. |
This is an early reference to the idea; see the discussion below for other sources.
| On the other hand, Mars could not be made habitable without first being stocked with air and water; and such an undertaking seemed impossible. There was nothing for it, then, but to attack Venus. The polar surfaces of that planet, shielded by impenetrable depths of cloud, proved after all not unendurably hot. Subsequent generations might perhaps be modified so as to withstand even the sub-arctic and "temperate" climates. Oxygen was plentiful, but it was all tied up in chemical combination. Inevitably so, since oxygen combines very readily, and on Venus there was no vegetable life to exhale the free gas and replenish the ever-vanishing supply. It was necessary, then, to equip Venus with an appropriate vegetation, which in the course of ages should render the planet's atmosphere hospitable to man. |
| Technovelgy from Last and First Men,
by Olaf Stapledon. Published by Not known in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the red weed described by HG Wells in his 1898 novel The War of the Worlds; the word terraform was coined by Jack Williamson in his 1941 short story Collision Orbit.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Last and First Men
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and Technology by Olaf Stapledon
Tech news articles related to Last and First Men
Tech news articles related to works by Olaf Stapledon
Planets Made Habitable-related
news articles:
- Nuke Mars To Terraform It, Says Elon Musk
| SETI Suggests Prospecting The Solar System Without Landing |
| Cislunar Space And The Space Lanes of Golden Age Science Fiction |
| NASA Moonbase Update |
| The Solar Oberth Slingshot |
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
