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"...the space defense initiative drove the USSR bankrupt, and it originated at my house in Tarzana."
- Larry Niven
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| Star Machine | ||
| A device that serves as a boost to psychokinetic powers of mind, enabling paranormals to send their awareness to distant planets. |
Shepherd Blaine is a space explorer, but he never leaves the earth. A member of a corporation called Fishhook, he sends his mind where nature has made it so difficult for human bodies to go.
| He crawled upward from the well of darkness into which he had been plunged, groping his way with a blind persistence that was almost driven instinct... Blaine opened his eyes and saw that the lid of the place in which he lay had been tilted back, and the glare of brightness that was a hooded light bulb was stabbing down at him. He took inventory of his body and it was all right. There was no reason for it not to be all right, for it had lain here and rested for all of 30 hours.
 (Star Machine from 'Time is the Simplest Thing' by Clifford Simak) He climbed from the coffin-like machine and shivered, for he was suddenly cold. "Here's your jacket, sir," one of the faces said, a face that surmounted a white smock. It was coming back, familiar now as he stood there are sipping at his glass of milk, the great operations room with its rows of glistening star machines, some of which were closed while the rest stood open. And in the closed ones lay others like himself, their bodies left behind and their minds far out in space. |
| Technovelgy from Time is the Simplest Thing,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Doubleday in 1961 Additional resources -
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Star Machine-related
news articles:
- Symbiotic Sphere By Space Synapse
| Futuristic Transit Elevated Bus Never Really Worked |
| Japan Automated Cargo Transport |
| Tesla Electric 'Giga Train' Operational In Germany |
| San Francisco Autobus |
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'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
