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"SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Cylinder Space Suit | ||
| A mostly rigid, cylindrical space suit. |
Yet another creative effort to describe a different kind of space suit; see the links at the end for references to other unusual space suits. Here's what it looks like from the outside:
And this will give you a bit more details.
It was a tiny cylinder, just big enough
to hold a man— and it did hold a man, for I could see
his head through the plastic panels covering one end
of the device. Long, jointed arms projected from the
machine's body, and it was trailing a thin cable behind it. I could just make out the faint, misty jet of the tiny
rocket motor which propelled this miniature space-
ship.
| We stood in front of the great circular door,
resting snugly on its rubber gaskets, which led into the
outer emptiness. Clamped to the walls around us were
the space suits, and I looked at them longingly. It had
always been one of my ambitions to wear one and to
become a tiny, self-contained world of my own...
To most people, the word "space suit" conjures up a picture of something like a diving dress, in which a man can walk and use his arms. Such suits are, of course, used on places like the moon. But on a space station, where there's no gravity, your legs aren't much use anyway, because outside you have to blow yourself round with tiny rocket units. For this reason, the lower part of the suit was simply a rigid cylinder. When I climbed inside it, I found that I could use my feet only to work some control pedals, which I was careful not to touch. There was a little seat, and a transparent dome covering the top of the cylinder gave me good visibility. I could use my hands and arms. Just below my chin there was a neat little control panel with a tiny keyboard and a few meters. If I wanted to handle anything outside, there were flexible sleeves through which I could push my arms. They ended in gloves which, although they seemed clumsy, enabled one to carry out quite delicate operations. Tim threw some of the switches on my suit and clamped the transparent dome over my head. I felt rather like being inside a coffin with a view.
 (Islands in the Sky) |
| Technovelgy from Islands in the Sky,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Not known in 1952 Additional resources -
|
Don't miss the space-walkers from The Universe Wreckers (1930) by Edmond Hamilton.
Compare to these other early space suit references;
the air-tight suit from Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss, the pneumatic suit from The Shot into Infinity (1929) by Otto Willi Gail, the space suit from The Emperor of the Stars (1931) by Schachner and Zagat, the altitude suit from The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell, the Osprey Space Armor from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson, the space overalls from Lost Rocket (1941) by Manly Wade Wellman and the space bubble from The Planet Strappers (1961) by Raymond Z. Gallun.
See also the Bubble Armor Space Suit from Agent of Vega (1949) by James Schmitz.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Islands in the Sky
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to Islands in the Sky
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
Cylinder Space Suit-related
news articles:
- Testing The Single-Person Spacecraft
| 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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'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
