Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Untethered Spacewalk's 50th Anniversary

NASA Astronaut Bruce McCandless II, flew the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) out of the space shuttle Challenger’s payload bay for the first time on February 7, 1984, during the STS-41B mission in 1984.


(The first untethered spacewak)

As far as I know, the term "space walk" was first used in science fiction (and maybe anywhere) in 1939, in Moon Heaven by Dom Passante:

But that space walk of mine wasn't so very amazing. I've lived here all my life, and like a swimmer who can accustom himself to long periods under water, so have I, by occasional jaunts to the plateau, accustomed myself to void conditions.
(Read more about space walk)

The first description of an untethered (or tethered) spacewalk was probably in Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898), by Garrett P. Serviss, published by New York Evening Journal in 1898.

Update 04-Apr-2024: Here's another version of the untethered spacewalk, this time with a grim reminder of the inexorable nature of Newton's laws of motion. This is from Between Earth and Moon, by Otfrid von Hanstein, published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1930:

Quickly he opened the outer door of the airlock. Now he felt just as he had once before, as a student aviator, when he had jumped out of his burning plane at a dizzy height, not knowing whether his parachute would open or not.

Nothing happened. Hesitantly he stepped outside. He had to push himself away from the rocket with his hand he remained floating motionlessly outside.

He hung the iron hook at the end of the rope on a ring on the outside of the rocket and looked about him.

He was unwilling to think; he forced his mind not to take in where he was. He would not remember that the earth lay one hundred and eighty thousand kilometers down below him...

He looked about, and at this moment his vision dimmed and his heart nearly stopped beating...

Now the most frightful thing possible had happened.

Egon was perfectly motionless. The gas container was empty. But the rope which connected him with the rocket was no longer fastened to the latter. Probably the impulse of the writing machine had sufficed to free the hook from the ring. The rope was floating freely in the air, and the rocket was at least twenty meters from the end of it.


(From Between Earth and Moon by Otfrid von Hanstein)

He tried to make swimming motions. Of course it was in vain. He encountered no resistance. He simply lost his equilibrium and had trouble in floating back into it.

The rocket was apparently standing still, but he was moving, to a degree hardly perceptible, more and more away from it. He could not understand how in this moment of the most fearful certainty of death he could think so calmly.

It was quite clear to him what had happened. He, the only person in a diving suit, a hundred and eighty thousand kilometers above the earth, had become a third satellite...

Silently the rocket, the new satellite of the earth, sped on its newly formed orbit. Before it went the tiniest of all bodies in the universe, the grain of dust in space — the living being, still protected from the cold of space by his diving suit, with his lungs still breathing the remnants of the oxygen in the cylinder, his senses still alert, going to meet death with open eyes.

End update.

Update 11-May-2024: I should add that the Manned Maneuvering Unit was anticipated by the self-propulsive space suit described in Bluff of the Hawk (1930)


(From The self-propulsive suit from The Bluff of the Hawk) by Anthony Gilmore:

They had quite a considerable range:

Clad as they were in the latter's self-propulsive space-suits, they were quite capable of reaching Jupiter's Satellite III, only some thirty thousand miles away.

End update.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/30/2024)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")

SpaceX EVA Spacesuit Tested By Polaris Dawn Crew
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.' - Otto Willi Gail, 1929.

ESA To Build Moon Bases Brick By Printed LEGO Brick
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.' - John W. Campbell, 1950.

FLOAT Levitating Train On The Moon ala Clarke
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1955.

SpaceX Intros Extravehicular Activity Suit
'Provision had been made to meet the terrific cold which we knew would be encountered the moment we had passed beyond the atmosphere.' - Garrett P. Serviss, 1898.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Chaffeur Robot Musashi Will Drive Your Regular Car
'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'

Space Exporers! Now, You Can Drink Your Own Urine
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'

SpaceX EVA Spacesuit Tested By Polaris Dawn Crew
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'

Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'

Shanghai Guidelines For Humanoid Robots
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'

Desktop TARS Robot From Interstellar
What's YOUR sarcasm setting?

Robots Can Now Have Smiling Faces With Human Skin
'I am a cybernetic organism...'

Virtual Rat Predicts Actual Rat Neural Activity
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'

GoSun EV Solar Charger Drapes Onto Your Car
'...six square yards of sunpower screens.'

Rizon 4 Ironing Robot
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'

Cognify - A Prison Of The Mind We've Seen Before In SF
'So I serve a hundred years in one day...'

Robot With Human Brain Organoid - 'A Thrilling Story Of Mechanistic Progress'
'A human brain snugly encased in a transparent skull-shaped receptacle.'

Goodness Gracious Me! Google Tries Face Recognition Security
'The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell...'

With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need
'The only real cost was in the plastic balloon that guided the growth of the coral and enclosed the coral's special air-borne food.'

Can A Swarm Of Deadly Drones Take Out An Aircraft Carrier?
'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'

WiFi and AI Team Up To See Through Walls
'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.