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"I took the Minnesota multiphasic profile test once, and I tested out as paranoid, cyclothymic, neurotic, and schizophrenic. But I also tested out as an incorrigible liar!"
- Philip K. Dick
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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. |
| From A Daring Trip To Mars,
by Max Valier. Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
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and Technology from A Daring Trip To Mars
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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
| Space-Based Solar Power A Priority - European Space Agency |
| Goldilocks Zones Found On The Moon |
| Spaceships Should Last So Long |
| Space Station Shutters |
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'A cable, here, from the controller to the interface plug... wires from that to the brain.'
'The slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...'
'Holodeck 4 was waiting to be programmed...'
'... he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'I stood in line for half an hour for this, and it's just a blob!'
'A young man... advanced with nervous strides along the gravel path which leads to the bronze doors of the Lethal Chamber.'
'... we'll give him in his brain what he needs for creation.'
'Rapidly, purposefully, the metallic fingers moved over the key-boards...'
'...vast man-made disk of metal set spinning about the sun to supply the Earth with power.'
