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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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| Electronized Gravity Plate | ||
| Artificial gravity for use on space stations and spacecraft. |
A very useful device; some version of this is provided (usually without comment) on most sfnal spacecraft.
| The Bolar current, popularly misnamed the paralyzing ray, has no effect whatever of a physical paralysis. It merely generates a sudden gravitational force, transitory, but of extreme intensity so that the victim stands momentarily "rooted to the ground." The subject is highly technical of explanation. The affected material object does not gain an extreme weight, as in the case of an electronized gravity plate with full attractive force: the paralyzing beam acts more in the nature of magnetism - at the contact point of the affected object and the ground into which the Bolar current is discharged. |
| From Blood of the Moon,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1936 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the artificial gravity from Last and First Men (1930) by Olaf Stapledon, and to the more practical solution - the city of space, presented by Jack Williamson in his 1931 story The Prince of Space.
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Propulsion-assisted orbital decay, brought to you by SpaceX.
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Maybe not, but we're seeing definite progress.
'These people are pieces of software called avatars.'
