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"A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content."
- Theodore Sturgeon
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| Multigyros | ||
| Allows known stable movement in four dimensions, thus making space travel possible. |
| FLANKED by the two guards, Donald followed Danvril along the narrow passage between the exterior isochromin glass and the multigyros set in the very bottom of the spaceship, under a dome that rose between the cargo that was stacked fore and aft.
These consisted of a dozen top-like mechanisms, set at various angles, imparting what had been the last difficulty to overcome in interplanetary navigation, stability in absolute space, viewed as a four-dimensional continuum. |
| Technovelgy from Revolt on Inferno,
by Victor Rousseau. Published by Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Does the ship still have a captain?
Inasmuch as the complete course of the space-ship had been set by the experts before she left Earth, and the multigyros maintained it without the slightest variation, old Croft’s task was largely a routine one. Nevertheless, upon the bridge, he seemed to typify those old traditions of the sea, which had come down as legends through the years.
Navigation is carefully calculated:
Donald nodded. Matters had suddenly assumed a serious aspect. Jupiter’s giant bulk was as big a bugbear to space-travel as any shoals or rocks had been to sea-ships in earlier centuries.
“When do we start?” Donald asked.
“Exactly five-thousandths of a second after 23, which means in four hours’ time. But when I say there is no navigating, I mean, of course, outside Earth’s atmosphere. It’s Cohaine’s job to see we land at Chicago instead of falling into the Atlantic.”
On the bridge stood Captain Crofts, a sturdy old man whose history went back almost to the first interplanetary voyage, apart from the first fugitive rocket-journeys to the moon.
“We don’t navigate. The course and return course are both plotted from Earth. The calculations must be exact to the millionth part of a second. Otherwise we might collide with our Moon, or, worse yet, fall into Jupiter.”
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"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
