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"To get anywhere, or even live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer."
- Robert Heinlein
 |
| Reaction Pistol | ||
| A hand-held device for maneuvering in zero gravity in a space suit. |
Before venturing untethered out of your space ship to rendezvous with a planetoid, or perhaps rescue a floating comrade a few dozen feet away, you'll want a way to maneuver in zero gravity. Perhaps help lies in Newton's third law of motion - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
| "...Miss Wingate, watching at the port, saw you drift away from the ship, and when we turned about to get you she insisted on going out after you. She slipped on a space suit, grabbed a reaction pistol and found you floating unconscious. Plucky girl." |
| Technovelgy from Martian Guns,
by Stanley D. Bell. Published by Wonder Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Gordon A. Giles also mentions this idea in his 1937 story Diamond Planetoid:
Compare this method of moving between objects in space with the spring-loaded broomstick from Arthur C. Clarke's 1952 story Islands in the Sky, Personal Jet Thrust from Robert Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet and Electrical Tether from Garrett P. Serviss' 1898 story Edison's Conquest of Mars.
Compare also to the steering shot pistol from The Shot Into Infinity (1929) by Otto Willi Gail, the emergency repulsion ray from Earth-Venus 12 (1936) by Gabriel Wilson, the metal solvent ray thrower from Lost Rocket (1941) by Manly Wade Wellman, the propulsion gun from Venus Mines, Incorporated (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat) and the Pistol 'Rocket' (1931) from Buck Rogers: 2430 AD (1931) by Nowlan and Calkin.
He... shuffled toward the lock. In another minute he had passed out of Welton's sight, to reappear a moment later from the side port. Little spurts of red-orange flame from the reaction pistol marked his companion's trail to the planetoid thirty feet away.
((Reaction Pistol from 'Diamond Planetoid' by Gordon A. Giles)
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and Technology from Martian Guns
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and Technology by Stanley D. Bell
Tech news articles related to Martian Guns
Tech news articles related to works by Stanley D. Bell
Reaction Pistol-related
news articles:
- The Manned Maneuvering Unit Story
| Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station |
| SpaceX's Starman Tesla Roadster In Space |
| Warp Drive Tech Back On The Menu |
| JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote |
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'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
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'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.'
