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"This category [science fiction] excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Hand-Rocket | ||
| A handheld device that used reaction matter to aid explorers in space suits to move around easily in zero gee. |
This device solves one of the thought-experiments of early space enthusiasts; how do you move around when freely floating in empty space if you have nothing to push on?
| But Kark Al at that moment stepped calmly out from the lock into empty space! The chain at his belt yanked Lalla Dee and Rab and the robot after him. They all floated there in space, a human chain, scraping the hull of the huge liner as it forged onward.
Kark Al's hand-rocket flashed flame, its impulse dragging them all forward. They moved outward from the liner... |
| Technovelgy from Murder in the Void,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938 Additional resources -
|
V.E. Thiessen uses the same idea in his 1947 story Asteroid Justice:
Compare with the Reaction Pistol from Gordon A. Giles 1937 story Diamond Planetoid, the Personal Jet Thrust from Robert Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet.
He saw the lock open on the Fleetblast and opened his own, propelling himself into space and across the void. A few guiding blasts of his hand rocket and he was inside the lock of the other ship.
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Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton
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| First Trips To Mars Announced By Elon Musk |
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
