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"I share the view of Pythagoras that the world is number. The ultimate substrate of the universe is math. There's no way to test that - it's pure metaphysical speculation."
- Bart Kosko
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| Stationmaster | ||
| A human being is preserved for life in space, serving as the conscious mind running a space station. |
George Harmon was the stationmaster, but it was more than a job.
| The first years had been the hardest, trying to adjust to giving up human qualities to become a space station. Often during that time he had gazed in upon himself, upon his human body, and wondered if the pension given to Stationmasters was worth the years of isolation. He had examined his apparently Ufeless body encased in its plastic cylinder of preserving, protecting liquid carefully traced the spiderweb wires fastened by surgery which plunged from all directions into his brain toward predetermined contacts. The wires stretched through the space station like veins and arteries and nerves, making the station a living thing.
 ('Many Dreams of Earth' by Charles E. Fritch) They had plugged him, like some great electronic tube, into the hub of the station, and from that moment on he had ceased to exist. From that instant he ceased to be George Harmon, Earthling, homo sapiens. From that moment on he was Space Station 42, a mechanical entity patrolling an orbit between Earth and Mars — on a ten year tour of duty. |
| Technovelgy from Many Dreams of Earth,
by Charles E. Fritch. Published by Orbit in 1954 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the living space ship from Solar Plexus (1941) by James Blish.
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Tech news articles related to Many Dreams of Earth
Tech news articles related to works by Charles E. Fritch
| SETI Suggests Prospecting The Solar System Without Landing |
| Cislunar Space And The Space Lanes of Golden Age Science Fiction |
| NASA Moonbase Update |
| The Solar Oberth Slingshot |
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
