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
"The planet's immune system is doing everything it can. The planet's immune system is doing everything it can."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Hyperspace Beacon | ||
| Located in real space, these devices provide reference points in hyperspace to make navigation possible. |
How can you find your way through hyperspace, that featureless void outside of real space? You need beacons to show the way.
| The first ships to enter hyperspace had no place to go - and no way to tell if they had even moved. The beacons solved that problem and opened up the entire universe. They are built on planets and generate tremendous amounts of power. This power is turned into radiation that is punched through into hyperspace. Every beacon has a code signal as part of its radiation and represents a measurable point in hyperspace. Triangulation and quadrature works for navigation - only it follows its own rules.
For a hyperspace jump, you need at least four beacons for an accurate fix. For long jumps, navigators use up to seven or eight. So every beacon is important and every one has to keep operating. That is where I and the other troubleshooters come in. |
| From The Repairman,
by Harry Harrison. Published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1959 Additional resources -
|
What happens when one of them breaks down? You can't get to it directly through hyperspace; you can get close and then travel for months through real space.
The old ones break down more often. Like the Mark III -
This is an early description of the hyperspace beacon concept. The same idea and term were used in the television show Babylon 5; without beacons, ships would drift endlessly through featureless hyperspace, unable to discern their location relative to real space.
You'll find an earlier example in Troubled Star, a 1952 novel by George O. Smith: see space beacon. You'll find another version (not quite the same idea) in The Cosmic Blinker (1953) by Eando Binder; see Artificially Pulsating Star.
I looked at the blueprints he gave me and felt my eyes glaze with horror. "It's a monstrosity! It looks more like a distillery than a beacon - must be a few hundred meters high...
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Repairman
More Ideas
and Technology by Harry Harrison
Tech news articles related to The Repairman
Tech news articles related to works by Harry Harrison
Hyperspace Beacon-related
news articles:
- Robotic Observatory Opens On Antarctic Plateau
- Is 'The Pulsar Positioning System' Evidence For SETI?
| JAXA's Int-Ball Drone To Follow Astronauts In Space Station |
| Moon Express Lunar Robot Mining: Shine On, Harvest Moon |
| Asteroid Deflection With DART |
| Unrolling The Filmy Materials Of Space Tech |
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.
|
'About a third of the people in Manhattan have replaced their Freedom Card with a radio-frequency chip...'
'The... machine, being homotropic, headed toward them, still bleating...'
'Most of the crew have the tiny imp ride on their shoulder...'
'And just as a daydreamer forgets his actual surroundings, and sees other realities...'
'Ender doodled on his desk, drawing contour maps of mountainous islands and then telling his desk to display them in three dimensions...'
'The bulldozer moved through the lunar strip mine... '
