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"There was a time when one old eccentric guy with a notebook could do something important to science. Now even the resources of a major university are often not enough."
- Jerry Pournelle
 |
| Space-Armor | ||
| Special shielding worn against rays and explosives. |
This is a very early use of this phrase.
| It must have been over two hours later that a huge torpedo set in motion by the forces of the Black Emperor, struck the ship. The explosion rolled her completely over, and tore a jagged though not disabling hole in her side. The air puffed out from the control room compartment, but the men who labored so feverishly there, were clad in heavy space armor, and aside from being badly bruised they were unhurt. |
| From Revolt of the Star Men,
by Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1932 Additional resources -
|
For example, here is how the phrase was used by Doc Smith in his 1934 novel Triplanetary. In the novel, "space armor" is often used interchangably with "suit of space" (space suit); it is also written with a hyphen as "space-armor." Smith does distinguish an "emergency suit" from space armor.
As seen below, space armor does have its limits.
I think that McDermott and Miller deserve a tie for first use of this term, because they use it in The Duel on the Asteroid, which appeared in Wonder Stories, January, 1932:
Through the aperture thus made Costigan could plainly see the pirate in the space-armor of the chief engineer - an armor which was proof against rifle fire and which could reflect and neutralize for some little time even the terrific beam Costigan was employing... The officer touched a trigger, there was a double report, ear-shattering in that narrowly confined space, and the pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half-kilogram shell tore through his armor and exploded.
And he would fall with the same near-weightlessness, would fairly drift through the airless void that surrounded this pocket-planet... Light as he was, the fall jarred him as would a twenty-foot drop in space-armor on Earth or Venus.
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