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"I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Braking Disks | ||
| Used when the ship is falling through a planetary atmosphere. |
| "We must put out the braking disks, doctor!" called the engineer.
As viewed from the outside, there now came from the nose of the ship (which pointed backward) a cable, on which there were arranged certain distances thin metal disks, which were bent somewhat backward like cones, the result looking like the familiar tufts on the tail of a child's kite. One after another these disks glowed brightly and were worn away and burned by air resistance and the resulting heat, along with their cable, which burned like a candle wick. But new disks kept coming out on more cable. In this way it was possible to convert the tremendous force latent in the motion of the ship into air whirls and heat in a gradual fashion, and by sacrificing the metal disks the ship itself was saved from burning. |
| Technovelgy from A Daring Trip To Mars,
by Max Valier. Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the ablative heat shield from Triplanetary (1934) by EE 'Doc' Smith.
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More Ideas
and Technology from A Daring Trip To Mars
More Ideas
and Technology by Max Valier
Tech news articles related to A Daring Trip To Mars
Tech news articles related to works by Max Valier
| Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS |
| Solar-Powered Space Trains On The Moon |
| JWST Finds Bucking Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 |
| First Trips To Mars Announced By Elon Musk |
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
