Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I feel like I've been very fortunate in that I've stuck like a burr to the dog-leg of the next generation of nerdism. I've been carried into the XXIth century on Bill Gates' pants-cuff."
- William Gibson
 |
| Space Transfer Station | ||
| An orbiting space station primarily used as a stepping-off point from Earth. |
In the novel, Circum-Terra was a great hodgepodge of efforts made at different times.
| Circum-Terra was a great confused mass in the sky. It had been built, rebuilt, added to, and modified over the course of years for a dozen different purposes - weather observation station, astronomical observatory, meteor count station, television relay, guided missile control station, high-vacuum strain-free physics laboratory, strain-free germ-free biological experiment station, and many other uses.
But most importantly it was a freight and passenger transfer station in space, the place where short-range winged rockets from Earth met the space liners that plied between the planets. For this purpose, it had fueling tanks, machine shops, repair cages that could receive the largest liners and the smallest rockets, and a spinning, pressurized drum - "Goddard House" - which provided artificial gravity and Earth atmosphere for passengers and for the permanent staff of Circum-Terra. |
| From Between Planets,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1951 Additional resources -
|
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Between Planets
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to Between Planets
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
| NASA's Electric Motor Scooter |
| Extremophile Microbe Loves Space Rocks |
| Space Domes Over-rated? Science Fiction Authors Have Answers |
| NASA 'Broomstick' Recalls SciFi Ideas |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
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.
|
'But that barrier was going to melt away someday soon. The transhumanists had promised...'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture...'
'... in some departments their power is absolute.'
'...he sipped the cognac that the robot bartender handed him.'
Convincing video shows progress (and limitations).
'The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.'
'Against Death doth no simple grow.'
