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"We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders. They're watching their feet: provable mistakes are bad for them. We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes."
- Larry Niven
 |
| 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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| FLOAT Levitating Train On The Moon ala Clarke |
| SpaceX Intros Extravehicular Activity Suit |
| SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha |
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
