![]() |
Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"I was involved in a cloning project. .. to send me into outer space along with a lot of other people. Not the whole me - just a hair from my head, while I still had some. I would thus pop up in another galaxy in the distant future."
|
![]() |
![]()
Once the rocket tubes were prepared, the course set, the rockets were ignited!
The Moon was traveling faster than it had for millions of years, and was gradually drawing away from the Earth.
A smaller-scale version of the same idea was used in Asteroid of Fear by Raymond Z. Gallun. In that story, it is assumed that the asteroid Vesta is an intact surface fragment of an ancient planet.
Yes, strangely enough there was still sufficient water beneath the surface of Vesta. Its parent planet, like the Earth, had had water in its crust, that could be tapped by means of wells. And so suddenly had Vesta been chilled in the cold of space at the time of the parent body's explosion, that this water had not had a chance to dissipate itself as vapor into the void, but had been frozen solid. The drying soil above it had formed a tough shell, which had protected the ice beneath from disappearance through sublimation...
Drill down to it, melt it with heat, and it was water again, ready to be pumped and put to use.
And water, by electrolysis, was also an easy source of oxygen to breathe.... The soil, once thawed over a few acres, would also yield considerable nitrogen and carbon dioxide—the makings of many cubic meters of atmosphere. The A.H.O. survey expeditions, here on Vesta and on other similar asteroids which were crustal chips of the original planet, had done their work well, pathfinding a means of survival here.
You might want to compare this idea with the more dramatic Romulan flame drill used in the new Star Trek movie series (and the real-life flame jet drill deveolped for drilling into solid rock).
Also, here's a neat illustration of drilling into an airless moon or asteroid from The Radium World (1932) by Frank K. Kelly:
![]() (Mining claim stake-markers from The Radium World by Frank K. Kelly) Compare this with the method for moving an asteroid described in Robert Heinlein's 1939 story Misfit. See also ship pushes moon from the Buck Rogers: 2430 AD comic strip (1930) by Nowlan and Calkin, the asteroid rocket from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson, planetary propulsion blasts from Thundering Worlds (1934) by Edmond Hamilton and moving a planet from Triplanetary (1934) by EE 'Doc' Smith. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources: Atomic Drill-related
news articles:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
![]() |
Science Fiction
Timeline
Chaffeur Robot Musashi Will Drive Your Regular Car
'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
Space Exporers! Now, You Can Drink Your Own Urine
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
SpaceX EVA Spacesuit Tested By Polaris Dawn Crew
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
Shanghai Guidelines For Humanoid Robots
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
Virtual Rat Predicts Actual Rat Neural Activity
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
Rizon 4 Ironing Robot
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
|
![]() |
![]() |
Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | ![]() Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
![]() |