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"We were essentially being shell-shocked by rapid change. That was one of the things you needed science-fiction writers for back in the Sixties, because we could cope with the future."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Solar Energy Beam | ||
| A solar energy plant on Mercury provides power for projects all over the solar system. |
In this story, there are unusual events taking place on Mercury, right where energy is gathered for use throughout the solar system.
It begins with an enormous photocell on Mercury, which is pretty much the best place to stand on solid ground while collecting free solar power.
| The control room was a wonder of clicking, chuckling, chortling, snicking gadgets. Gadgets that kept the flow of power directed to the substations on the Twilight belt. Gadgets that kept the tight beams from the substations centered exactly on those points in space where each must go to be picked up by the substations circling the outer planets.
Let one of those gadgets fail - let that spaceward beam sway as much as a fraction of a degree - Curt shuddered at the thought of a beam of terrific power smashing into a planet - perhaps into a city. But the mechanism had never failed - never would. It was foolproof... This was really free power, easy power, plentiful power. Power carried across millions of miles on Addison's tight-beam principle. |
| Technovelgy from Masquerade,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Was there another way to get that concentrated power to the outer planets?
Compare to the power planet from Power Planet (1931) by Murray Leinster, the near-space solar energy collector from Star Maker (1937) by Olaf Stapledon, the solar station switch room from Doom Over Venus (1940) by Edmond Hamilton, the solar station from Isaac Asmov's 1941 story Reason and the solar beam from The Long Way (1944) by George O. Smith.
A far cry from the day when the plant charged monstrous banks of converters to be carted to the outer worlds by lumbering spaceships.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Masquerade
More Ideas
and Technology by Clifford Simak
Tech news articles related to Masquerade
Tech news articles related to works by Clifford Simak
Solar Energy Beam-related
news articles:
- Solar Power Satellites Urged By Pentagon
- Solar Satellites Beam Back Energy
- SolarEn To Sell Satellite Solar Power
- Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large Phased Array
- Shimuzu Luna Ring Solar Power Project
- China Plans Orbiting Solar Power Station
| Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics |
| Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers |
| Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram |
| Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable |
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'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
