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"Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Hand-Jetting | ||
| Making use of hand-held rockets or other reaction devices to move through space. |
| He just couldn't think of life without the joy and lift that comes of plunging into space with the controls of a thousand thunders under the fingertips. What surface job offered the thrill of hand-jetting across ten miles of bucking emptiness to make fast a line to an inert wreck ? |
| Technovelgy from A Question of Salvage,
by Malcolm Jameson. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1939 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the reaction pistol from Martian Guns (1932) by Stanley D. Bell, the metal solvent ray thrower from Lost Rocket (1941) by Manly Wade Wellman and the Pistol 'Rocket' (1931) from Buck Rogers: 2430 AD (1931) by Nowlan and Calkin.
Also, compare this method of moving between objects in space with the spring-loaded broomstick from Arthur C. Clarke's 1952 story Islands in the Sky, Personal Jet Thrust from Robert Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet and Electrical Tether from Garrett P. Serviss' 1898 story Edison's Conquest of Mars.
I can't resist this perfect match from the 2019 movie The Martian, when character Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) goes "full-Iron Man" to save himself by actually "hand-jetting":
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs...'
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
