Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
- William Gibson
 |
| Extraecliptic Travel Lanes | ||
| Organized interplanetary travel using routes not confined to the ecliptic. |
The ecliptic is the extension or projection of the plane of the Earth's orbit out towards the sky.
| It is described as an elongated ellipsoid of about five million miles along major axis and the gravitic equivalent at center is estimated to be of the order of several thousand megabars. Correspondingly strong ‘highs’ have been detected both above and below it as well as in front of and behind it, so that extraecliptic travel lanes are as impassable as the usual ones. |
| Technovelgy from A Question of Salvage,
by Malcolm Jameson. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1939 Additional resources -
|
The use of the word "extraecliptic" is quite unusual, and this is probably the first appearance in science fiction. You might find it in texts about astrology or surveying earlier in the 20th century.
In the 1939 Lester del Rey story Habit, racing rockets head from Mars to a point above the ecliptic, down to Jupiter and back to Mars.
Going above the ecliptic was also recommended to avoid asteroids in Recoil (1943) by George O. Smith.
Compare to space-lanes from Crashing Suns (1928) by Edmond Hamilton.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from A Question of Salvage
More Ideas
and Technology by Malcolm Jameson
Tech news articles related to A Question of Salvage
Tech news articles related to works by Malcolm Jameson
| ISS Plagued By Leak - Again! |
| Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug |
| Crystalline Structures In Space, You Say? |
| Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
