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"I was involved in a cloning project. .. to send me into outer space along with a lot of other people. Not the whole me - just a hair from my head, while I still had some. I would thus pop up in another galaxy in the distant future."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Rocket Engine Moves Moon | ||
| Using the propulsive mechanism of a space ship to move a small moon or asteroid. |
Every early use of this idea.
| “All about us was the sable sky flashing
with icy stars — myriad legions of them
stretching into the endless vastness of the universe. They beckoned to us-— beckoned to
that burning spirit of adventure that is ever
the possession of a strong, virile race. Could
we resist this chance to explore and learn?
No!
“On each moon we built an immense driving mechanism of the same type used in our space ships. Then, one day, the tiny satellites tore loose from their orbits and after joining into a cluster began to rush with almost the speed of light out into interstellar space. Behind us always there trailed a long train of faintly-luminous gases ejected from the propelling machinery. That glowing appendage gives the swarm of moonlets the appearance of a true comet, and there is little wonder that your savants mistook it for such. “Thus we became the Daans or Nomads. For more than a million of your years we have been racing madly toward nowhere, visiting worlds, experimenting and amassing knowledge. To what ultimate purpose is it all? Though I am perhaps older than your first human ancestor, I am no nearer to the answer of that question than you." |
| Technovelgy from The Space Dwellers,
by Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Wonder Stories in 1929 Additional resources -
|
Compare to ship pushes moon from Buck Rogers, 2430 AD (1929) by Philip Nowlan (w/D. Calkins) , the asteroid rocket from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson, planetary propulsion blasts from Thundering Worlds (1934) by Edmond Hamilton, moving a planet from Triplanetary (1934) by EE 'Doc' Smith and move an asteroid from Misfit (1939) by Robert Heinlein.
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and Technology from The Space Dwellers
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Tech news articles related to works by Raymond Z. Gallun
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'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
