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"...in fifty years, do you believe that people will be recognizably human?"
- Greg Bear
 |
| Space-Drive | ||
| A means of providing propulsion for a spacecraft. |
As far as I know, the first use of this general term.
| There we shall have plenty of work to do, but on the way we are going to stop at Mars and pick up that very valuable ship of theirs and make a very careful examination for possible new weapons, their system of speed-drive, and their regular space-drive, if it is not the same. |
| Technovelgy from Invaders From The Infinite,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Experimental Publishing Co. in 1932 Additional resources -
|
In case you were curious, and wanted more details:
Compare to Lyle drive from Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) by Robert Heinlein, the
ion drive from Equalizer (1947) by Jack Williamson, the asymptotic drive from Imperial Earth (1976) by Arthur C. Clarke and the gravity drive from Star Ship (1950) by Poul Anderson.
Their regular drive is a molecular drive with lead disintegration apparatus for the energy, cosmic ray absorbers for the heating, and a drive much like ours. Their speed drive is a time distortion apparatus, I'll wager. Time distinction offers an easy solution of speed. All speed is relative--relative to other bodies, but also to time-speed. But we'll see.
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Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
