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"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Acceleration Chair | ||
| A specially-designed chair used to help crew stay mobile during periods of high acceleration. |
One of the problems with conventional means of space travel (not involving faster than light) are the difficulties caused by the fact that accelerating the vehicle produces a force indistinguishable from gravity. Accelerating a ship at 10 meters per second per second would feel like earth-normal gravity.
| On the second day, Staley brought a new midshipman up to the bridge, both moving in traveling acceleration chairs. |
| From The Mote in God's Eye,
by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1974 Additional resources -
|
At 20 meters per second per second, you would feel like you weighed twice as much. How could you move around without assistance?
Over the years, NASA has studied the problem of protecting people during high acceleration (both entering space and during re-entry). You would think that perfect physical specimens who underwent rigorous training and dietary regulation would do the best after the weightlessness of space travel. However, a study was performed in which sedentary and highly fit people were given a baseline acceleration tolerance test, then given 10 days of enforced bed rest. A second test was given following the bed rest.
The sedentary people were found to do better on the second test than the "perfect specimens." See the amusing article Fat Slobs in Space for additional details.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Mote in God's Eye
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle)
Tech news articles related to The Mote in God's Eye
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle)
Acceleration Chair-related
news articles:
- MIT Wants To Catch Interstellar Visitors
| Japan's LignoSat Space Wood Satellite And Dan Simmons' Treeship |
| Is It Time For Lunar Farside Telescopes? |
| Spaceflight Vertigo Solved By NASA Releasing The Kraken |
| Lunar Pogo Stick - Retro Technovelgy From 1968 |
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'THE red tennis robot scooted desperately across the court...'
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
'Do you know what window washing used to cost by the hour?'
'Once the target is confirmed, it uses an IR laser to send a coded signal back to the parent, clearing it to attack.'
'I filled your bullet hole with flesh putty and the lattice.'
'... it will be easy to form an alphabet which shall enable us to converse with the inhabitants of the moon.'
'From the tower's huge octagonal base radiate wide silvery strips...'
'It was about five feet long... a black bullet head and red camera eyes.'
'The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software...'
