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"The point sticks in your head: physics rules. Virtue does not triumph unless the physics allows it."
- Larry Niven
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| Face-Plate | ||
| The transparent front of a space suit helmet. |
First use of this phrase.
| Back in the control room, Dunark and Sitar let their pressure decrease gradually to that of the terrestrial vessel and removed the face-plates from their helmets |
| Technovelgy from Skylark Three,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Murray Leinster used the same phrase just a year later, in The Power Planet:
The girl was clad in a suit exactly like his own.
Baggy and clumsy, with an effect of transverse striping on every part of it, which was the wire reinforcement.
She fumbled awkwardly with her own face-plate. It
was three plates of Caldwell glass, which is opaque to
radiations having a heat-effect.
Compare to the transparent space-helmet from The Sargasso of Space (1931) by Edmond Hamilton and the space helmet from The Disc-Men of Jupiter (1931) by Manly Wade Wellman.
He buckled the last breast-strap, closed the face-
plate of his helmet and tried out the air-supply,
and opened the face-plate again.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Skylark Three
More Ideas
and Technology by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Tech news articles related to Skylark Three
Tech news articles related to works by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
| SETI Suggests Prospecting The Solar System Without Landing |
| Cislunar Space And The Space Lanes of Golden Age Science Fiction |
| NASA Moonbase Update |
| The Solar Oberth Slingshot |
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'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
