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"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Asteroid Space Flyer | ||
| Specialized one-man craft for exploring asteroids. |
| The young astronaut approached his tiny space flyer. It was shaped like an egg, except that it was more elongated, and the two ends tapered down to blunt points instead of being rounded. It was mounted upon four revolving metal spheres set into its keel instead of wheels as landing gear. It was especially adapted for the use of exploring meteors, for all sides were studded with grapples and jointed drills as well as claw-like iron rods. These latter, which were also jointed, were capable of acting in the capacity of fingers in grasping material and placing it into the receptacles which lined the sides of the little space car. All of the exterior apparatus was manipulated by mechanical control from within.
...The young astronaut entered the space flyer, closed the door, and was alone in the air-tight compartment just large enough to accommodate him. On the instrument board before him were dials, levers, gauges, buttons and queer apparatus which controlled and operated the various features of the craft. He turned on his oxygen supply and his air rejuvenator so that the air could be used more than once, after which he shoved his starting lever forward. The craft raced suddenly off the roof and into the cloudless sky above the vast city of the twenty-sixth century.
 ('Deaths' Head Meteor' by Neil R. Jones) ...it was but a short time before the tiny space flyer found itself in the vacuum of outer space. The little craft had six windows of a thick glass-like substance which was colored a deep transparent brown to nullify the blinding glare of the sun. The windows pointed in six different directions, and it was from these that Jan noticed the daylight ebbing, to be replaced by the utter blackness of night, except where the blazing ball of the sun shone through the brown glass windows. |
| Technovelgy from The Death's Head Meteor,
by Neil R. Jones. Published by Air Wonder Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to landing on an asteroid from Murder on the Asteroid (1933) by Eando Binder, asteroid rocket from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson and asteroid nets from Asteroid Justice (1947) by V.E. Thiessen.
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| Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space |
| Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic |
| Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station |
| SpaceX's Starman Tesla Roadster In Space |
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
