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"Science and science fiction, how do you even distinguish the two?"
- Jerry Pournelle
 |
| Tubeways | ||
| A fully enclosed, evacuated tube, through which passenger train cars are shot as through a rifle barrel! |
| "...I've thought of an invention to make rocket travel safe."
"The only possible way of controlling a car moving at rocket speed, is to shoot it through a tube—as a bullet is shot through a rifle barrel. Then one can be certain of its course, can check it at the proper point, and know that it will land where one desires. There are difficulties, of course—
 ('Death in the Tubeway' by Stanton R. Coblentz) "How about friction?" I put in. "Wouldn't the speed of contact with the air burn it to ashes?" "There would be no contact with the air," Wendell stated. "The tube would have to be a vacuum." "Even so, wouldn't friction with the sides of the tube—" "Naturally, that must be provided for also. The tube would be wide enough to permit the vehicle to passthrough it without touching either wall. Automatic radio controls within the tube would hold it to its course, preventing the slightest deviation. The car would be constantly under as perfect control as a locomotive on the tracks—" |
| Technovelgy from Death in the Tubeway,
by Stanton A. Coblentz. Published by Amazing Stories in 1939 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the submarine tube from An Express of the Future (1895) by Michel Verne, the sub-Atlantic tunnel from Ralph 124c 41 + (1911) by Hugo Gernsback, the pneumatic tube station from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat), the pneumatic-tube zone from Mechanocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breuer, the vacuum cylinder from Wandl, The Invader (2839) by Ray Cummings, the vortal tube from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert, the public vehicle tube from The Houses of Iszm (1954) by Jack Vance, the vacutubes from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein and the bounce tube from Double Star (1956) by Robert Heinlein.
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Tech news articles related to works by Stanton A. Coblentz
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