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"No one has ever produced a statement of fact that was technically true. The most accurate statements of science we have today are accurate to only 15 decimal places."
- Bart Kosko
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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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Solar Station-related
news articles:
- Can China Create Megawatt Solar Power Satellites By 2030?
| SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha |
| NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts |
| Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn |
| Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail? |
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
