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"Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible solutions."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Space-Walker | ||
| Tall cylinder with a window at eye-level, and pincer-claws controlled by the wearer. |
| Also attached to hooks on the walls were the four space-walkers that had been constructed for us to enable us to venture outside of the flier into airless space, if necessary. These space-walkers were cylindrical metal structures seven feet or more in height and three in diameter, tapering at the top to a smooth dome in which were small vision-windows. Each held a small generator of force-vibrations, and an equally small air-renovator.
 (From Space-Walkers from 'The Universe Wreckers' by Edmond Hamilton) There were two hollow metal jointed arms that extended from the upper part, and on entering the cylinder and closing its base-door one thrust his own arms inside those hollow metal ones. They ended in great piucer-claws that could be actuated by one's own hands inside, while the space-walker itself was moved through the void by its generated force-vibrations being shot out from a small ray-opening in the cylinder's bottom. |
| Technovelgy from The Universe Wreckers,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
This description of how it feels to wear one of these suits is classic Hamilton:
Glancing out through the vision-windows I saw that Marlin and Whitely and Randall had struggled into their space-walkers also, and were signalling their readiness. We grasped therefore the tools and materials we had hastily assembled for our task, these being spare plates to repair the flier's outer wall and a small molecular- diffusion welder, and then with those in the grasp of our great pincer-hands were pulling ourselves toward the flier's screw-door. In a moment we had that open, and were crowding into the little vestibuic-chamber which lay between the outer and inner doors. Closing the inner one tightly behind us, we swiftly screwed open the outer door. As it opened there was a rush of air from about us as the air of the little vestibule-chamber rushed out into the great airless void outside, and then Marlin was leading the way out of that door, out into sheer space, outside our falling space-flier!
I saw Marlin drawing himself in his space-walker through the door and then floating gently out that door, floating in space a few feet from our flier and falling at the same rate as it toward mighty Saturn !
The idea of a space walk was probably first described in science fiction in Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss; see space walk.
Compare to the cylinder space suit from Islands in the Sky (1952) by Arthur C. Clarke.
Compare to these other early space suit references;
the air-tight suit from Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss, the pneumatic suit from The Shot into Infinity (1929) by Otto Willi Gail, the space suit from The Emperor of the Stars (1931) by Schachner and Zagat, the altitude suit from The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell, the Osprey Space Armor from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson, the space overalls from Lost Rocket (1941) by Manly Wade Wellman, the space bubble from The Planet Strappers (1961) by Raymond Z. Gallun and the Bubble Armor Space Suit from Agent of Vega (1949) by James Schmitz.
I was standing, therefore, in a metal cylinder seven feet in height and three in diameter, its top tapering into a rounded little dome in which were small windows from which I could look outward, My arms I had thrust into the great hollow jointed anus of metal that projected from the cylinder's sides, and had at my fingers' ends inside tbose arms the controls of the great piucer-hands in which those arms ended outside, and the control also of the small generator inside the cylinder whose little force-ray was shot down from the cylinder's bottom. This could be shot straight down, sending the space-walker upward by pushing against some larger body, or could be shot out obliquely sending the space-walker horizontally in any direction. Once inside the space-walker therefore, with its tiny generator throbbing and the equally small air-renovator and heater functioning, I was ready to venture out into the airless void.
(From Space-Walkers from 'The Universe Wreckers' by Edmond Hamilton)
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
