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"I think we're still on that topic, still trying to figure out what computers are, how they change us, why we use them."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Landing on an Asteroid | ||
| An elaborate flight plan for landing a space ship on an asteroid. |
Asteroids have little or no gravity; how to land?
| The process of landing on an asteroid was a story in
itself. The pilot had to carefully swing the boat about
so that he would parallel the motion of the particular
asteroid he wished to visit. Then, by judicious rocket
thrusts, he had to gently swing his boat nearer to the
object until its feeble gravitation could grasp it and pull
it downward like a feather. The pilot had to watch that his
hull did not smash directly upon a needle-like spire of
rock, or settle into a gully surrounded by elevations, for
that would make it hard to get away again. An open
stretch of fairly level rock was the ideal landing place.
Once happily landed, the real work would begin. Into a vacuum suit and out of the boat, equipped with a steel pick and an electric drill; also such necessities as a spare oxygen tank, food tablets (inside the suit), a flashlight hanging on the belt, a battery to run the heating coils, a bag for rock samples strapped on the back, and the miniature radio set, with which last item the wearer could keep in constant touch with someone back in the boat. Any spot would be picked out and then the silent blows of the^sharp, leaden-weighted pick would work into the crumbly rock and dislodge samples of it. |
| Technovelgy from Murder on the Asteroid,
by Eando Binder. Published by Wonder Stories in 1933 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the iron fingers for asteroid exploration from The Death's Head Meteor (1930) by Neil R. Jones.
Compare to asteroid space flyer from The Death's Head Meteor (1930) by Neil R. Jones, asteroid rocket from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson and asteroid nets from Asteroid Justice (1947) by V.E. Thiessen.
As far as the landing experience goes, compare to the splashdown from From the Earth to the Moon (1867) by Jules Verne,
landing arms from Creatures of the Comet (1931) by Edmond Hamilton,
landing stage from Atomic Fire (1931) by Raymond Z. Gallun,
landing cradle from The Radium World (1932) by Frank K. Kelly,
docking-cradle from They Never Came Back (1941) by Fritz Leiber,
landing-grid from Sand Doom (1955) by Murray Leinster,
landing pit from The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester and
launching cradle from Needler (1957) by Gordon Randall Garrett.
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'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
