|
Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"...if you want to know what your future looks like, don't waste your time on Analog; read Time magazine. We are already saturated in the future. "
|
An early description of the likely result of a meteor striking a spacecraft.
Here's perhaps the earliest example, from Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898):
It was evident at a glance that the car had been struck by the meteor. How serious the damage might be we could not instantly determine. The course of our ship was immediately altered, the electric polarity was changed, and we rapidly approached the disabled car.
The men who had fallen lay upon its surface. One of the heavy circular glasses covering a window had been smashed to atoms. Through this the meteor had passed, killing two or three men who stood in its course. Then it had crashed through the opposite side of the car, and, passing on, disappeared into space. The store of air contained in the car had immediately rushed out through the openings, and when two or three of us, having donned our air-tight suits as quickly as possible, entered the wrecked car we found all its inmates stretched upon the floor in a condition of asphyxiation. They, as well as those who lay upon the exterior, were immediately removed to the flagship, restoratives were applied, and, fortunately, our aid had come so promptly that the lives of all of them were saved. But life had fled from the mangled bodies of those who had stood directly in the path of the fearful projectile.
Here's another illustrated example of a meteorite striking a ship, from Liners of Space (1930) by Jim Vanny.
A blinding flash — a terrific impact — a deafening report within the car!
The Swan was drifting aimlessly. The meteorite had only glanced off the cutter but had delivered a blow of sufficient force to disable the ship. A quick nspection showed that a large section of the nose together with part of the operating equipment had been torn away and the air in that compartment had escaped. The ship was helpless.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
||