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"In WWII, they had a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. I think the modern equivalent of that is that there are no jaded, bored people in the high-tech industry, in the land of really good hardcore geeks."
- Neal Stephenson

Cider Press  
  Device used to make acceleration above 1 gravity more tolerable for groundhogs.  

This is a very early reference; Doc Smith has an earlier one - but Heinlein has more detail!

Against one bulkhead and flat to it were two bunks, or "cider presses," the bathtub-shaped hydraulic, pressure-distribution tanks used for high acceleration in torchships…

Two gravities is not bad, not when you are floating in a liquid bed. The skin over the top of the cider press pushed up around me, supporting me inch by inch; I simply felt heavy and found it hard to breathe.

Technovelgy from Double Star, by Robert Heinlein.
Published by Doubleday in 1956
Additional resources -

Is this the invention of the waterbed? See the entry for hydraulic bed for the answer.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Double Star
  More Ideas and Technology by Robert Heinlein
  Tech news articles related to Double Star
  Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein

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