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"Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Ether Boat | ||
| A space craft. |
The "ether" referred to here is not a soporific gas, but rather the theorized transmission medium of light and gravity in the absence of all matter - the emptiness of space.
| In the dim interior of an ether boat, two men labored over a pile of rock lumps. They were dressed warmly in sweaters and thick skin-tight trousers. The inner sections of an ether boat were hard to keep warm, especially when the vacuum locks to the outside were used frequently. Every time the lock was opened and the air rushed out, the new air that filled the space when the outer door closed absorbed the intense frigidity of the bare metal wall of the lock chamber. Then, when the inner door to the boat proper was Opened, this frosted air swept in and quickly lowered the average temperature. It was all the electric heaters could do to keep the heat up to just past the freezing point of water. |
| Technovelgy from Murder on the Asteroid,
by Eando Binder. Published by Wonder Stories in 1933 Additional resources -
|
More details:
With a mighty rumble the rear tubes blasted
their song Of power and in a graceful arc the little blunt-nosed, cylindrical ether boat left its roosting
place. Once safely away from the asteroid, Timothy
reset the keyboard for a straight course...
He climbed the short ladder to the pilot room which
was a little one man cell whose roof was glass almost
as tough and strong as steel. He seated himself in
the pilot seat and gazed around with bleary eyes.
From this position the pilot commanded the entire
view on all sides and also upward...
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More Ideas
and Technology from Murder on the Asteroid
More Ideas
and Technology by Eando Binder
Tech news articles related to Murder on the Asteroid
Tech news articles related to works by Eando Binder
| Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside? |
| Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space |
| Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic |
| Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
