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"You have to budget the number of fuzzy rules you use to control a system. It turns out, you can state the optimality principle in three words: 'patch the bumps.'"
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Moon Skis | ||
| Special wide skis for travel on lunar powder. |
Okay, Verne and others have discussed getting to the moon. But once you are there, how are you going to get around?
| Over the western horizon hung the Earth at last quarter, a green-blue giant moon...
MacIntyre bent down without a word and picked up the wide skis necessary to negotiate the powdery ash. Charlie followed his example. Then they swung the spare air bottles over their shoulders, and passed out through the lock. |
| Technovelgy from Requiem,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1940 Additional resources -
|
This is not as far-fetched as you think. Skiing on sand is done right here on Earth - it's all the rage in Dubai.
(Sand skiing on the dunes of Dubai)
Spend the morning skiing down the high dunes, with refreshments. On the way back to Dubai, enjoy dune bashing and camel riding.
Robert Heinlein also described moon skiing, an Eagle scout badge requirement, in his 1949 story Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon, published in Boy's Life.
(Cover of 'Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon' by Robert Heinlein)
(Moonskis in 'Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon' by Robert Heinlein)
(Pulling a toboggan on the moon in 'Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon' by Robert Heinlein)
(Side-step uphill skiing from 'Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon' by Robert Heinlein)
Apollo 17 geologist Harrison "Jack" Schmitt actually lamented "too bad I don't have my skis!" from the mountaneous Taurus Littrow Valley. Eventually, he perfected a kind of "lunar cross-country style" that worked like this:
"In the moon's low gravity, you can ski above the moondust--and I did. Imagine swinging your arms and legs cross-country style. With each push of your toe, your body glides forward above ground. Swing, glide, swing, glide. The only marks you leave in the moondust are the toe-pushes."
(From Jack Skis the Moon)
(Skiing on the Moon [Ulrich Lotzmann])
In his award-winning novel Dune, Frank Herbert spends a lot of time talking about how the native Fremen needed to walk across sand dunes so as not to attract the planet's giant sand worms. I wonder whether the sound of schussing would have been safe...
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Requiem
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to Requiem
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Moon Skis-related
news articles:
- Skiing That Soft Lunar Powder
- Snowboarding On Mars? Heinlein Was Ready
- Skiing On The Moon - Skiing on Asteroids?
| Solar X-Flares Disrupt North American Radio And Navigation |
| Restructure An Asteroid, Spin It, Get A 'Space Habitat' With Gravity? |
| Quadruple-Star System Now Forming |
| Nuclear Rockets To Fly In Space! |
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'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'If you surf over a bump... If you surf over a pothole...'
'Then the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and they stood an instant transfixed...'
'Noiselessly, on rubber-tired wheels, they journeyed...'
'...copy two of the original document no longer can be superimposed on copy one.'
My prize robot, tall, dashing would speak and act for me...
'A palm lock must be keyed to one individual's hand shape and palm lines.'
'I have transferred the ego of a dog to a synthetic dog brain in the skull case of a robot dog.'
