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"One can see the free software movement as a precusor for a "free hardware" or "free wetware" movement--one that will provide free libraries of designs for biological or nanotechnological products that replicators can be programmed to churn out."
- Charles Stross
 |
| Face-Plate | ||
| The transparent front of a space suit helmet. |
First use of this phrase.
| Back in the control room, Dunark and Sitar let their pressure decrease gradually to that of the terrestrial vessel and removed the face-plates from their helmets |
| Technovelgy from Skylark Three,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Murray Leinster used the same phrase just a year later, in The Power Planet:
The girl was clad in a suit exactly like his own.
Baggy and clumsy, with an effect of transverse striping on every part of it, which was the wire reinforcement.
She fumbled awkwardly with her own face-plate. It
was three plates of Caldwell glass, which is opaque to
radiations having a heat-effect.
Compare to the transparent space-helmet from The Sargasso of Space (1931) by Edmond Hamilton and the space helmet from The Disc-Men of Jupiter (1931) by Manly Wade Wellman.
He buckled the last breast-strap, closed the face-
plate of his helmet and tried out the air-supply,
and opened the face-plate again.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Skylark Three
More Ideas
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Tech news articles related to Skylark Three
Tech news articles related to works by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
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| The First Space Warship For Space Force |
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
