Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"The immediate problem with our meat brains is that they have no back-up. We can lose the most precious information we have from one bump on the head or stroke. You want a mind system with back-up that can access other databases."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Igloo-Shaped Space Shelter | ||
| Easy to set up on airless asteroids. |
I think this is the earliest expression of this excellent idea.
| By the time they returned to the little polar cup, the shelters were pitched - igloo shapes of woven metal, lined with lead foil and self-sealing plastic, fastened down with cables welded to the living iron, and inflated with oxyhelium. Small cylindrical airlocks gave entrance. Standing at the end of a short taut cable, above the crown of each shelter was a small peegee [paragravity] unit. Set to negative polarity, these provided a comfortable pressure against the floor, and some protection against meteor drift... |
| Technovelgy from Collision Orbit,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Astounding in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Here's another detail:
Compare to the plastic igloo from Love Among The Robots (1946) by Emmett McDowell, the Igloo Inflatable Moon Habitat from A Fall of Moondust (1961) by Arthur C. Clarke and the airtight tent from Raymond Z. Gallun's 1951 novella Asteroid of Fear.
...she kept getting up, against her will, to peer out through the tiny lead-glass peepholes in the thick, inflated fabric.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Collision Orbit
More Ideas
and Technology by Jack Williamson
Tech news articles related to Collision Orbit
Tech news articles related to works by Jack Williamson
| Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft |
| Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars |
| Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris |
| Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
