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"I was perfectly satisfied to write science fiction knowing that it would pay very little, that it would be seen by only a very few people."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Spider Space Elevator Test Vehicle | ||
| A robotic testing device for the cables of a space elevator. |
Once you have the cable strung between an object in orbit, and the base station on Earth, you still need to test the cable.
| The flimsy spider - a prototype test vehicle that looked like a motorized bo'sun's chair - had already made a dozen ascents to twenty kilometers, with twice the load it would be carrying now. There had been the usual teething problems, but nothing serious; the last five runs had been completely trouble-free. And what could go wrong? If there was a power failure - almost unthinkable in such a simple battery-operated system - gravity would bring Duval safely home, the automatic brakes limiting the speed of descent. |
| From The Fountains of Paradise,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Ballantine in 1978 Additional resources -
|
In it's simplest form, a bosun's chair is just a board attached to a rope that runs up the tall mast of a ship, through a pulley, and back down. The ship's officer in charge of deck crews and ship maintenance (the 'boatswain', which is pronounced 'bosun') sits carefully on the board, When sailors on deck haul on the rope, the bosun's chair rises up the mast, allowing the officer to inspect the ship's rigging.
The idea of a bosun's chair that rises upward for many kilometers is sort of breathtaking for anyone who has used one of these chairs to fix a problem on a small boat.
Devices like this have already been tested for use on space elevator ribbons; see the related resource link below.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Fountains of Paradise
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to The Fountains of Paradise
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
Spider Space Elevator Test Vehicle-related
news articles:
- Liftport Closer To Space Elevator Goal
- Robotic Cable Inspection System
| X2-VelociRoACH Cooperates To Launch Tiny Drones |
| An 'Ethical Black Box' For Robots? |
| Kino Project Roaming Personal Fashion Robots |
| First Crewless Ship? Umm |
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'Everyone was aware that the damned platform was wandering around in its own orbit...'
'In the crimson darkness, stewing warm on their cushion of peritoneum and gorged with blood-surrogate and hormones...'
'They plop down on the Red and if the dust is deep enough ... they burrow in...'
Little robots cooperating can do big tasks. Eventually.
Ever wonder how you look when you enter a new part of a spacecraft?
