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"Science fiction represents the modern heresy and the cutting edge of speculative imagination as it grapples with Mysterious Time---linear or non-linear time."
- Frank Herbert
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| Lunar Ice Mining | ||
| The practice of mining for ice on the moon. |
In the novel, water could be found by mining on the Moon. The habit of clipped speech Russian style is seen in the words of the narrator.
| One shy little fellow with bloodshot eyes of old-time drillman stood up. "I'm an ice miner," he said. "Learned by trade doing time for Warden like most of you. I've been on my own thirty years and done okay... I should say did do okay... because today you have to listen farther out or deeper down to find ice.
"That's okay, still ice in The Rock and a miner expects to sound for it..." |
| Technovelgy from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by GP Putnam in 1966 Additional resources -
|
This is not the first reference to the idea of mining ice on the moon; I don't know if there are earlier references in science fiction - readers?
The possibility of ice in the floors of polar lunar craters was first suggested by scientists in 1961 by Caltech researchers Kenneth Watson, Bruce C. Murray, and Harrison Brown. The first scientific suggestion that water ice existed on the lunar surface came in 1994; Clementine, a military space probe, beamed radar energy onto the lunar surface in such a way as to bounce it to radar stations on Earth. Analysis appeared to show that the echoes were consistent with an icy surface as opposed to a rocky surface.
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Tech news articles related to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
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Lunar Ice Mining-related
news articles:
- 'Significant Amount' Of Lunar Water Found
- Will We Mine The Moon For Ice?
- Texas-Sized Ice Slab Found On Mars
- Subsurface Martian Ice Slabs Piece Of Cake For Miners
| Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram |
| Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable |
| Darpa 'Defiant' Unmanned Autonomous Ship |
| DNA Printed Book By Isaac Asimov Now Available |
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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.'
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The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
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'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
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'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.'
