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"it slowly dawned on me that the landscape of science is maybe what interests people a great deal in science fiction."
- Gregory Benford
 |
| Bounce Tube | ||
| A people-sized pneumatic tube system used for short, quick trips in the vertical dimension. |
Didn't I see these used on the Jetsons? That show premiered in 1962; I think the original version shows the family using some sort of pneumatic tube in place of an elevator.
| On arrival I decided to forego the main entrance and took a bounce tube from the sub-basement to the twenty-first floor, I having at the time a vague feeling that this was not the place to let my public recognize me. |
| Technovelgy from Double Star,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Doubleday in 1956 Additional resources -
|
It's kind of a pneumatic tube for people. The biggest problems I can see are 1) maintaining pressure in the tube and 2) exiting the tube. Pressure behind the traveling capsule is maintained by virtue of the capsule having a collar that is in effect a gasket the same diameter as the inner diameter of the tube. Few people would choose to wear such a thing. As far as exiting the system is concerned, in an actual "tube room" (I worked in one while working my way through college), pneumatic tubes are unceremoniously dumped into a padded bin. Not a very dignified form of arrival.
This may be a "rediscovery" idea by Heinlein; the concept was originally proposed by George Medhurst, a London businessman in the early nineteenth century. His second proposal in 1812 was for a system that delivered people!
Compare to dropshaft from Deeper than the Darkness (1957) by Harlan Ellison.
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'Across the ancient sea floor a dozen tall, blue-sailed Martian sand ships floated, like blue smoke.'
'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
