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"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Autobus | ||
| Robot-guided public transportation. |
| THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold, it was certainly preferable to traveling by hipp. But hipp travel was unavoidable from here on. The trip to Aquia verged on the wet side of the planet—the side from which burst the mighty floods. So, added to steep, rocky drops, impassable by autobus, were the dank, muddy flats which only the hipp could traverse. |
| Technovelgy from Tidal Moon,
by Stanley G. and Helen Weinbaum. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938 Additional resources -
|
The hipp are the ubiquitous riding animals of Ganymede.
Amherst had served four terrestrial years on the watery planet as collector for Cree, Inc., moving from town to town gathering the precious medicinal moss, to take it finally to Hydropole, the rocket port, for trans-shipment to Earth.
He was one of the hundreds of such collectors for the giant company, each with his own route, each picking his own way from town to town, riding his hipp (the sea-horse of Ganymede, Hippocampus Catamiti) through the wild torrents of the afterfloods, past mountains whose locked valleys were apt to spill countless millions of tons of water upon him with no warning save the crash of the bursting mountain walls.
Isaac Asimov fans may recall his 1953 short story Sally (1953):
"You're exaggerating, Jake. The automatobuses get turned off every night."
Another early mention is ascribed to Henry Kuttner writing in The Little Things in 1946:
He hopped one of the robot buses when it stopped.
Hydropole, south polar city of Jupiter’s third major moon, Ganymede, was a chilly town at all seasons with its thirty degree Fahrenheit mean, and its variation of only ten degrees. But it was certainly the only settlement on the satellite that was worthy of the title of city.
(Hipp from 'Tidal Moon' by the Weinbaums)
"Now you listen to me." I raised my voice because I was just too mad to be polite anymore. "When you turn off Sally's motor, you hurt her. How would you like to be kicked unconscious?..."
(Read more about automatobuses)
Buses without drivers moved close to the curb and stopped at intervals. The lamp posts gave a different sort of light...
(Read more about robot bus)
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Tidal Moon
More Ideas
and Technology by Stanley G. and Helen Weinbaum
Tech news articles related to Tidal Moon
Tech news articles related to works by Stanley G. and Helen Weinbaum
Autobus-related
news articles:
- San Francisco Autobus
- NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
- 'Robovan' Name Already Taken - Elon, Try These
| Tesla Electric 'Giga Train' Operational In Germany |
| San Francisco Autobus |
| Volvo's Autonomous Truck |
| Eviation Alice Electric Plane First Flight |
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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.'
