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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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| Solar Power Apparatus | ||
| An ingenious device to gather solar energy, melt water, power a turbine and get hydrogen and oxygen fuel from ice. |
Ingenious idea for getting unlimited electric power on the moon, without complicated electronic solar panels.
| The engineer had judged correctly for the ground on which the space ship had landed consisted of ice...
"...Now be quick, get out the solar power apparatus and send it down to us from the air-lock by the crane."
 A huge parabolic mirror built of light sheet silver collected the intense heat of the sun and first melted a small amount of ice in a closed container. The water thus formed - which cannot exist free on the airless moon - was heated to boiling, and provided the steam for a little turbine. This was connected with a generator of electric energy, whose current was used for the electrolytic dissociation of melted ice in special containers. The entire system was of such dimensions that in four terrestrial days it would exactly fill the tanks of the ship with liquid hydrogen and oxygen in the right proportions. |
| Technovelgy from A Daring Trip To Mars,
by Max Valier. Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
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More Ideas
and Technology from A Daring Trip To Mars
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and Technology by Max Valier
Tech news articles related to A Daring Trip To Mars
Tech news articles related to works by Max Valier
Solar Power Apparatus-related
news articles:
- TransAstra Lunar Mining Idea Was Max Valier's In 1931
- Chang'e-5 Lunar Lander Seeks Water
- Privatized Moon Mining Appeals To Entrepreneurs
| 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.'
