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"There's no point in making a mistake unless you understand the mistake so that you don’t make it again."
- Alfred Bester
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| Dust-Cruiser | ||
| Specialized lunar transport able to negotiate dust-filled craters on the Moon. |
At the edge of a great (fictional) lunar expanse called the Sea of Thirst, the dust is many feet deep. What would be the best means of transportation?
| Selene was virtually a grounded spaceship; she had to be, since she was traveling in a vacuum... Though she never left the surface of the Moon, and was propelled by electric motors instead of rockets, she carried all the equipment of a full-fledged ship of space...
Selene was the very first of her line... some had wanted to make her like a stern-wheeler, but the more efficient submerged fans carried the day. As they drilled through the dust, they produced a wake like that of a high-speed mole, but it vanished within seconds, leaving the Sea unmarked by any signs of the boat's passage. |
| Technovelgy from A Fall of Moondust,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Harcourt, Brace and World in 1961 Additional resources -
|
As it turns out, it is unlikely that any boats will be needed on the Moon; the lunar dust appears to be no more than a few centimeters thick anywhere on the Moon.
Compare to the volplane from Blood of the Moon (1936) by Ray Cummings and to the vacuum tractor from Moonwalk (1952) by HB Fyfe.
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'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
'Living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system...'
'Twoflower's Luggage, which was currently ambling along on its little legs...'
'He came to as the ship went into free flight, arching in a high parabola over the plains...'
'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
