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"I don't have an e-mail address. As much as I admire the Internet I suffer literally agoraphobia, which in it's original sense means a fear of the marketplace. I do not want to receive three hundred e-mail messages per week from strangers…"
- William Gibson
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| Photoelectric Course Warning | ||
| A means of keeping a spaceship on course using a selected star and a photoelectric cell. |
In this excellent short story, the first spaceship takes off for a destination outside the solar system. How to keep your ship on course over the long days...
| "Just keep that star on the cross hairs. It's Pi Orionis, a little out of our course, but a good target since it is only twenty-five light-years away. Half the light is deflected on this screen, with a delicate photoelectric cell at its center. The instant the light of the star slips off it, a relay is started which lights a red lamp here, and in a minute sounds a warning bell. |
| Technovelgy from Out Around Rigel,
by Robert H. Wilson. Published by Street and Smith in 1931 Additional resources -
|
This is not a true autopilot, since it does not correct the course. It just warns the pilot if the ship has wandered from its course setting.
However, I think it's a pretty good idea for 1931; airports had only started using lights in the late 1920's. They didn't even have real approach lighting until the 1930's. The lights in rows were only standardized in the 1940's.
I'm guessing that Wilson's idea is derived from the idea of using a photoelectric cell to keep a telescope trained on a star, which has been around since about 1915 (if I remember correctly).
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| Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics |
| Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers |
| Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram |
| Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable |
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'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
