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"I long ago realized that I could reach far more people by writing something, than by walking down the street with a banner."
- John Brunner
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| Momentum Screen | ||
| Allows a spacemen to avoid the problem of "high gee" forces on take-off. |
A clever twist on the idea of artificial gravity, or a gravity shield, inside a spacecraft.
| The two wipers jumped to their bunks, threw up a lever and lay down. I followed suit; in a few seconds there was a grinding roar and our beds slid on quadrantal rollers up against the bulkhead. There was a moment of crushing weight and just when I thought I'd never get the strength to draw in another breath, the beds slid back off the bulkhead and were parallel with the floor again. In those days the momentum screens were inoperable inside the Heaviside Layer, and during the few seconds it took to get outside, the acceleration was really rough... |
| Technovelgy from Completely Automatic,
by Theodore Sturgeon. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
The Heaviside layer (also called the Kennelly-Heaviside layer) is a layer of ionized gas that occurs at about 56-93 miles above the earth's surface. It makes possible radio waves that can propagate beyond line-of-sight.
Compare to the gravity screen from Edmond Hamilton's 1929 classic Crashing Suns.
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'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
'...a prayer wheel swung into view and began spinning at a furious pace.'
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
'It's an old model,' Rawlins said. 'I'm not sure what to do.'
'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...'
'He rode the bike with an intense lack of physical grace...'
