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"I long ago realized that I could reach far more people by writing something, than by walking down the street with a banner."
- John Brunner
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| Inflatable Air Lock | ||
| Air lock making use of inflatable side walls to achieve large size. |
This is a very early reference to the idea of using inflatable modules of any kind in space, as well as to the idea of using an inflatable air lock.
| The net and the plastic sidewalls were, of course, the method by which a really large airlock was made practical. When this ship was about to take off again, pumps would not labor for hours to pump the air out. The sidewalls would inflate and closely enclose the ship's hull, and so force the air in the lock back into the ship. Then the pumps would work on the air behind the inflated walls—with nets to help them draw the wall-stuff back to let the ship go free. The lock could be used with only fifteen minutes for pumping instead of four hours. |
| Technovelgy from Space Tug,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Belmont in 1953 Additional resources -
|
Apparently, the first-ever spacewalk, by Alexi Leonov in 1965, featured an inflatable airlock. The Voskhod spacecraft itself was far too small for a self-contained airlock, so they made an inflatable one that extended outside the vehicle.
I wonder if the Russians were reading up on American sf, or if there is an earlier source for the idea. Anyone?
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| Capturing Asteroids With Nets |
| Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed! |
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'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
