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"I've been very obsessive about writing science fiction for far too many years. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have given up years ago."
- Charles Stross
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| Artificial Island For Ocean Rocket Launch | ||
| An entirely artificial, floating island used as a launch platform. |
| It was a remarkable island, circular, about half a kilometer in diameter. It rose from the sea, floating on it and fastened to the bottom only by strong anchors. It actually was a huge hemisphere of metal and concrete, open underneath. Above it was shaped to a single perfectly level platform, which rose so high above the water that it was not splashed by the waves. From this platform steps led down to the water all around. On all four sides, ribs several hundred meters long extended out into the sea, forming four harbors which could be used according to the direction of the wind.
 (Artificial Island) "Hey! Look here!" No answer - nobody - no guard at the shore. There was only the great steel colossus, which held the upright rocket in its spidery arms as if in a tender embrace, rising up alone in the air. |
| Technovelgy from Between Earth and Moon,
by Otfrid von Hanstein. Published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to rocket float from Too Many Boards! (1931) by Harl Vincent, Freezone from Freezone (1985) by John Shirley, the floating island from Saturn's Race (2000) by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes) and the float-home from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert.
As far as I know, the first actual launch of a missile from a floating platform occurred in 1947, a V2 rocket from a US Navy vessel.
6 September 1947. Operation
— Ron Eisele (@ron_eisele) September 5, 2019
Sandy: US Navy aircraft carrier USS Midway launched a captured V-2 rocket from
its deck. First launch of a large rocket from a ship at sea. pic.twitter.com/ReVbGTJ23r
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news articles:
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| Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram |
| Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable |
| Darpa 'Defiant' Unmanned Autonomous Ship |
| DNA Printed Book By Isaac Asimov Now Available |
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'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
'I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side...'
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!'
