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"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Spaceplane | ||
| A craft able to land on Earth and take off directly for space. |
As far as I know, this is the first use of the word "spaceplane" in science fiction.
| WHAT COULD IT HAVE BEEN?
I CAN'T UNDERSTAND IT, ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS ON THIS PLANET WON'T PERMIT SUCH A THING. EITHER SOME POWERFUL BEINGS FROM SPACE, PERHAPS FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE, ARE ENGAGED IN CONQUEST --- OR --- BUT I WON'T THINK OF THAT! ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!
 (Spaceplane from 'Zarnak' by Max Plaisted) YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, VAECO. I'M LEAVING IMMEDIATELY IN MY SPACEPLANE! |
| Technovelgy from Zarnak,
by Max Plaisted. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1937 Additional resources -
|
Here is the first panel in which it appears:
(Spaceplane panel from 'Zarnak' by Max Plaisted)
Compare to the space shuttle fro Hell Ship of Space (1940) by Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr., the shuttle from Stars are Styx (1950) by Theodore Sturgeon, the shuttle ship and Winged Rocket Shuttle from Heinlein's 1951 novel Between Planets, the JAL shuttle from Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer and the Clarke Spaceplane from A Quantum Murder (1998) by Peter F. Hamilton.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Zarnak
More Ideas
and Technology by Max Plaisted
Tech news articles related to Zarnak
Tech news articles related to works by Max Plaisted
Spaceplane-related
news articles:
- Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
| MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech |
| Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville |
| US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger |
| Terraformer Industries Make Methane |
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'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
