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"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Hand-Rocket | ||
| A handheld device that used reaction matter to aid explorers in space suits to move around easily in zero gee. |
This device solves one of the thought-experiments of early space enthusiasts; how do you move around when freely floating in empty space if you have nothing to push on?
| But Kark Al at that moment stepped calmly out from the lock into empty space! The chain at his belt yanked Lalla Dee and Rab and the robot after him. They all floated there in space, a human chain, scraping the hull of the huge liner as it forged onward.
Kark Al's hand-rocket flashed flame, its impulse dragging them all forward. They moved outward from the liner... |
| Technovelgy from Murder in the Void,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938 Additional resources -
|
V.E. Thiessen uses the same idea in his 1947 story Asteroid Justice:
Compare with the Reaction Pistol from Gordon A. Giles 1937 story Diamond Planetoid, the Personal Jet Thrust from Robert Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet.
He saw the lock open on the Fleetblast and opened his own, propelling himself into space and across the void. A few guiding blasts of his hand rocket and he was inside the lock of the other ship.
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'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
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'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
