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"The writing is clicking away in my head and piling up, and unless I get it on paper somehow it's going to create uncomfortable pressure in my skull."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Water Pool Cushions Acceleration | ||
| The use of water to cushion and protect against extreme ship accelerations. |
As far as I know, this is an early reference to this idea in American science fiction.
A large, lightly loaded freighter heads to Mars, carrying executives and a large tank of sea water for use in a chemical plant. Duke Stetson decides to take a swim.
| The moment his body sank into the water, the excess weight he was carrying slipped off. Floating in the water, the effect was the same as though he was on Earth, for the water buoyed him up perfectly.
Suddenly there came a crash... the rockets, without control, opened up to full. Rocket motors, designed to produce an acceleration four times gravity on the ship when loaded to capacity, broke loose when the ship was practically empty... the ship rocketed forward under an acceleration seven and three-quarters times the gravity of Earth. Stetson lapsed into unconsciousness almost instantly as the enormous acceleration weight pressed down on him. But the water he floated in saved him from death.
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| Technovelgy from The Derelicts of Ganymede,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Wonder Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
See water springs from From the Earth to the Moon (1867) by Jules Verne.
Compare to the cider press from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein and the acceleration-tank from Triplanetary (1934) by E.E. 'Doc' Smith.
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'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
