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"[Science fiction] is the only kind of writing that allows you to look at the world we live in and change one piece at a time."
- Frederik Pohl

Inertia Tank  
  A device that protected its delicate contents by cushioning.  

When flying back from the Moon, Brand Fanshaw needed every possible advantage to land safely. Just in case - he was in his inertia tank.

The tank... was cylindrical. It's walls were light-weight, triple-layered steel, fitted with vacuum compartments to keep heat out, and braced every which way in their internal structure, to make them as strong as possible.

There was gelatin in the tank; stiff, clear gelatin... the principle of the tank wasn't complicated. It surrounded whatever it was meant to protect with a soft, flexible, shock-absorbing semifluid cushion.

Technovelgy from Masson's Secret, by Raymond Z. Gallun.
Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1939
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