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"I think a lot of kids whose mental growth outruns their maturity gravitate to science fiction."
- Dan Simmons
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| Launching Cradle | ||
| A place for a spherical space craft to sit in gravity. |
| The Killiver was sitting in its launching cradle at the far side of the ten-mile-square Grand Port of Kandoris. Roysland didn't bother to take the tubeway; he flashed his credentials and commandeered a surface jeep. Bilford had already taken charge of the crew, but Roysland wasn't worried about them; he wanted a look at the ship.
 (Launching Cradle from Needler by Randall Garrett) |
| Technovelgy from Needler,
by Gordon Randall Garrett. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1957 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the flywheel launcher from The Brick Moon, by Edward Everett Hale, published by Atlantic Monthly in 1869, the Artificial Island For Ocean Rocket Launch from Between Earth and Moon by Otfrid von Hanstein, published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1930 and the Landing-Grid launch system from Sand Doom, by Murray Leinster, published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1955.
Compare also to splashdown from From the Earth to the Moon (1867) by Jules Verne,
landing stage from Atomic Fire (1931) by Raymond Z. Gallun,
landing on an asteroid from Murder on the Asteroid (1933) by Eando Binder,
docking cradle from They Never Came Back (1941) by Fritz Leiber,
landing-grid from Sand Doom (1955) by Murray Leinster and
landing pit from The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester.
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'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
