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"...there's a great affinity between writing poetry and SF."
- Dan Simmons
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| Solar Station | ||
| A satellite that gathers solar energy in space and then beams it to Earth (or other planetary surface). |
How can you explain space and stars and planets - to a robot? Even a robot intended to administer a solar station.
| "The dots to which our energy beams are directed... are cold and hard and human beings like myself live upon their surfaces - many billions of them... Our beams feed these worlds energy drawn from... the Sun. |
| Technovelgy from Reason,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Where else can you read a phrase like "Sizzling Saturn!"
In the story, it is revealed that the station is about a mile across. It uses an "Energy Converter" to gather sunlight; the station can beam energy across the solar system to different planets.
I'll have to go back to my collection of vintage Astounding Science Fiction to see whether this story was before Clifford Simak's Masquerade, which uses a similar idea - see solar energy beam. [Asimov's story appears in April - but Simak's appears in March! Of course, it might have been John w. Campbell's idea, anyway.]
Compare to the power planet from Power Planet (1931) by Murray Leinster, the near-space solar energy collector from Star Maker (1937) by Olaf Stapledon, the solar station switch room from Doom Over Venus (1940) by Edmond Hamilton, and the solar beam from The Long Way (1944) by George O. Smith.
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Tech news articles related to Reason
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Solar Station-related
news articles:
- Can China Create Megawatt Solar Power Satellites By 2030?
| The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds |
| Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again? |
| Reflect Orbital Offers 'Sunlight on Demand' And Light Pollution |
| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
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'...each of them is a neural mapping of the mind of a Tibetan monk who actually lived.'
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'
'Completely silent, accurate up to about twenty meters. No recoil...'
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'
