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"[Science fiction is] an integration of the mood and attitude of science (the objective universe) with the fears and hopes that spring from the unconscious."
- Gregory Benford
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| Energy Converter | ||
| Massive unit on the sunside of Mercury converts heat into energy, and beams it around the solar system. |
| "Cheap energy; cheapest in the System. Sun power, you know, and on Mercury's Sunside, sunpower is something. That's why the Station was built in the sunlight rather than in the shadow of a mountain. It's really a huge energy converter. The heat is turned into electricity, light mechanical work and what have you; so that energy is supplied and the Station is cooled in a simultaneous process." |
| Technovelgy from Runaround,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Street and Smith in 1942 Additional resources -
|
The energy is beamed around the solar system; this is described more fully in succeeding stories the I, Robot series.
Compare to the Near-Space Solar Energy Collectors from Olaf Stapledon's 1937 novel Star Maker. and the solar energy beam from Masquerade by Clifford Simak.
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"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
