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"I kind of take it for granted that our great-grandchildren will regard us as a sort of precursor species. That they won't think of us as human and if we could see them, we probably wouldn't think of them as human either."
- William Gibson
 |
| Adiabatic Pods | ||
| Tiny space capsules large enough to hold one passenger. |
'Before the great ships whispered between the stars by means of planoforming, people had to fly from star to star with immense sails...'
| A small spaceboat provided room for a sailor to handle the sails, check the course, and watch the passengers who were sealed, like knots in immense threads, in their little adiabatic pods which trailed behind the ship. The passengers knew nothing, except for going to sleep on Earth and waking up on a strange new world forty, fifty, or two hundred years later. |
| From The Lady Who Sailed The Soul,
by Cordwainer Smith. Published by Galaxy in 1960 Additional resources -
|
An adiabatic process is one that occurs without gain or loss of heat; in other words, during the process the system is thermodynamically isolated. As described by Smith, people incased in these pods are in a state of suspended animation, or 'cold sleep'.
Compare to the space capsule from E.R. James' 1954 story of the same name and to the escape pod from George Lucas' 1976 story Star Wars.
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