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"The immediate problem with our meat brains is that they have no back-up. We can lose the most precious information we have from one bump on the head or stroke. You want a mind system with back-up that can access other databases."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Impactor Determines Composition | ||
| The use of an impactor to smash into a small celestial body; watching the impact can determine the composition of the small body. |
Explorers from a Martian colony encounter what appears to be a small asteroid. How can you tell what it is made of without actually landing and taking samples?
| "There it is. Can you get a spectro?"
"No heat." Wendis shook his head. "I'll have to warm it up with a tracer." Fire streaked in a thin line from the muzzle of a cannon-like tube mounted beneath the viewing instruments and a tiny, rocket-powered projectile, drove towards the mysterious bulk. It hit, exploding into a cloud of incandescent vapour, and Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen. "... the spectro shows traces of iron, some copper, a little tungsten and a lot of beryllium. Looks unnatural somehow, too much like an alloy." |
| Technovelgy from The Mechanical Monarch,
by E.C. Tubb. Published by Ace Books in 1958 Additional resources -
|
As it turns out, it's not an asteroid at all.
The recent Deep Impact program, in which a comet's composition is investigated with the aid of an 850 pound impactor, now seems like a modern incarnation of an old idea.
Compare to the Spectro-Flash Analysis from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson, the sounding projectile from Mad Robot (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun and iron fingers from The Death's Head Meteor (1930) by Neil R. Jones.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Mechanical Monarch
More Ideas
and Technology by E.C. Tubb
Tech news articles related to The Mechanical Monarch
Tech news articles related to works by E.C. Tubb
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- Hayabusa-2 Asteroid Cannon Strategy From 1950's SF Novel
- Proposal To Use Lasers To Analyze Asteroids
- Japanese Swordsmiths Take On Asteroids
- Japan Uses Explosives On Asteroid
| Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft |
| Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars |
| Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris |
| Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand |
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'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
