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"I just can't be politic. I never learned how to do that and I don't like doing that. I think it's false."
- Harlan Ellison
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| Solar Engine | ||
| A space ship that gets it motive power from the rays of the sun. |
| That the ship had the necessary starting power was already proved by the fact that She had lifted and her acceleration was being maintained. She was of the more recent type that utilized solar rays in transit, and there was therefore no concern over energy once she had got out into the airless void where the sun’s rays shone always burning hot...
 (Ship controls from A Matter of Size) ... the solar motors of the ship were whining faintly but evenly. |
| Technovelgy from A Matter of Size,
by Harry Bates. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1934 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the solar-powered aircraft from The Black Star Passes (1930) by John W. Campbell.
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Tech news articles related to A Matter of Size
Tech news articles related to works by Harry Bates
| Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug |
| Crystalline Structures In Space, You Say? |
| Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail |
| The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds |
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'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...'
