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"Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Bat Wings | ||
| The dream of human-powered winged flight becomes a reality - in low gravity, of course. |
In this excerpt from the novel, the inhabitants of an orbiting habitat take time for recreation.
| There were wings attached to hooks at the entrance. McLeve took down a set and began strapping them on. Black bat wings. They made him look like a fallen angel, Milton's style. He handed me another pair. "Like to fly?" he asked... I was a tiny chick in a vast eggshell. The landscape was wrapped around me: fields and houses... Every direction was down. |
| Technovelgy from Limits,
by Larry Niven. Published by Del Rey in 1985 Additional resources -
|
This is from Spirals a short story by Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Hang gliding is a similar sport; it gained popularity in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Hang gliding is based on a technology developed in 1948 called the "parawing", a
V-shaped flexible airfoil made of fabric. NASA showed early interest in using it for returning space craft.
As alert readers have pointed out, Robert Heinlein originated this idea almost thirty years earlier in The Menace From Earth - see the entry for Bat's Wings. For a different take on this idea, see the Dragonfly sky-bike from Rendezvous With Rama (1972) by Arthur C. Clarke.
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| Tesla Electric 'Giga Train' Operational In Germany |
| San Francisco Autobus |
| Volvo's Autonomous Truck |
| Eviation Alice Electric Plane First Flight |
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'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
