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"SF is a controlled way to think and dream about the future."
- Gregory Benford
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| Dust-Cruiser | ||
| Specialized lunar transport able to negotiate dust-filled craters on the Moon. |
At the edge of a great (fictional) lunar expanse called the Sea of Thirst, the dust is many feet deep. What would be the best means of transportation?
| Selene was virtually a grounded spaceship; she had to be, since she was traveling in a vacuum... Though she never left the surface of the Moon, and was propelled by electric motors instead of rockets, she carried all the equipment of a full-fledged ship of space...
Selene was the very first of her line... some had wanted to make her like a stern-wheeler, but the more efficient submerged fans carried the day. As they drilled through the dust, they produced a wake like that of a high-speed mole, but it vanished within seconds, leaving the Sea unmarked by any signs of the boat's passage. |
| Technovelgy from A Fall of Moondust,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Harcourt, Brace and World in 1961 Additional resources -
|
As it turns out, it is unlikely that any boats will be needed on the Moon; the lunar dust appears to be no more than a few centimeters thick anywhere on the Moon.
Compare to the volplane from Blood of the Moon (1936) by Ray Cummings.
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Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
| JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote |
| Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now |
| Denmark Joins The 'Zero Debris Charter' To Clean Up Space |
| Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle |
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
