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"Bureaucracies hide their mistakes, because people's careers are tied to those mistakes. Therefore, bureaucracies are a perfect mechanism for perpetuating mistakes."
- Frank Herbert
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| Shuttle | ||
| A space craft that travels point to point in space. |
As far as I know, the earliest use of the word "shuttle" in science fiction.
| "To the shuttle!” yelled Joslin. And indeed this seemed the only avenue to escape left open. Quickly the trap door to shuttle number one was banged open. The eight quickly entered and the door was once more bolted shut. A minute later they were flung free from the doomed vessel. Quickly the shuttle was reversed and turned away from the Barta. The last they saw of that wonderful ship, she was headed directly toward the blinding glare of the sun.
 (Shuttle from 'Liners of Space' by Jim Vanny) In due time the shuttle was picked up by a Venusian liner bound for the Earth. And although the great Barta itself was lost forever, the shuttle proved invaluable to the staff of Inter-Stellar Lines. |
| Technovelgy from Liners of Space,
by Jim Vanny. Published by Air Wonder Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Theodore Sturgeon used this word in his 1950 story The Stars are the Styx:
See also references to shuttle ship and Winged Rocket Shuttle from Heinlein's 1951 novel Between Planets and JAL shuttle from Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer.
I WAS waiting in the entry bell when Judson arrived on Curbstone. Judson had nothing to do with that. I didn't even know he was on that particular shuttle. It's just that, aside from the fact that I happen to be Senior Release Officer on Curbstone, I like to meet the shuttles.
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| Used Dragon Cargo Spacecraft Will Fly Again |
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Science Fiction
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
