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"...the space defense initiative drove the USSR bankrupt, and it originated at my house in Tarzana."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Harvesting Saturn's Rings | ||
| Mining the rings for industrial purposes. |
Bitingly sarcastic commentary from Bester.
| Saturn was quite a sight as it came looming up... Alas, only the two inner rings remain. Despite violent protests by ecologists and cosmologists, the Better Building Conglomerate had been permitted to harvest the third outer ring for some kind of better building aggregate. There was a housing crisis, and the [Conglomerate] paid enormous taxes. One infuriated astronomer had been euthanized for burning the chairman of the board. |
| Technovelgy from The Computer Connection,
by Alfred Bester. Published by Berkeley Publishing in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the earliest mention of the idea of mining Saturn's rings that I know about, the space placers from The Day We Celebrate, a 1941 short story by Nelson S. Bond.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Computer Connection
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and Technology by Alfred Bester
Tech news articles related to The Computer Connection
Tech news articles related to works by Alfred Bester
Harvesting Saturn's Rings-related
news articles:
- Planetary Parks Proposed For Mars Conservation
- Maybe We Should Harvest Saturn's Rings While We Still Can
| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
| The First Space Warship For Space Force |
| Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside? |
| Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space |
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'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
'Gaines and Harvey mounted tumblebugs, and kept abreast of the Cadet Captain...'
Accompanied by a small selection of similar ideas from science fiction.
'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
