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"It's also important to vary your stimuli. I always look for new things to shock the system. Just as you make muscles grow by shocking them, you make the mind grow by shocking it."
- Bart Kosko

Solar Engine  
  A space ship that gets it motive power from the rays of the sun.  

That the ship had the necessary starting power was already proved by the fact that She had lifted and her acceleration was being main­tained. She was of the more recent type that utilized solar rays in transit, and there was therefore no concern over energy once she had got out into the airless void where the sun’s rays shone always burning hot...


(Ship controls from A Matter of Size)

... the solar motors of the ship were whining faintly but evenly.

Technovelgy from A Matter of Size, by Harry Bates.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1934
Additional resources -

Compare to the solar-powered aircraft from The Black Star Passes (1930) by John W. Campbell.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from A Matter of Size
  More Ideas and Technology by Harry Bates
  Tech news articles related to A Matter of Size
  Tech news articles related to works by Harry Bates

Articles related to Space Tech
Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside?
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Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station

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