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"It was [H.G. Wells'] adolescent fiction, his imaginative stories, that live forever - and yet are not acknowledged in literature classes as being great literature. So to hell with the academics!"
- Greg Bear
 |
| Impactor Determines Composition | ||
| The use of an impactor to smash into a small celestial body; watching the impact can determine the composition of the small body. |
Explorers from a Martian colony encounter what appears to be a small asteroid. How can you tell what it is made of without actually landing and taking samples?
| "There it is. Can you get a spectro?"
"No heat." Wendis shook his head. "I'll have to warm it up with a tracer." Fire streaked in a thin line from the muzzle of a cannon-like tube mounted beneath the viewing instruments and a tiny, rocket-powered projectile, drove towards the mysterious bulk. It hit, exploding into a cloud of incandescent vapour, and Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen. "... the spectro shows traces of iron, some copper, a little tungsten and a lot of beryllium. Looks unnatural somehow, too much like an alloy." |
| Technovelgy from The Mechanical Monarch,
by E.C. Tubb. Published by Ace Books in 1958 Additional resources -
|
As it turns out, it's not an asteroid at all.
The recent Deep Impact program, in which a comet's composition is investigated with the aid of an 850 pound impactor, now seems like a modern incarnation of an old idea.
Compare to the Spectro-Flash Analysis from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson, the sounding projectile from Mad Robot (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun and iron fingers from The Death's Head Meteor (1930) by Neil R. Jones.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Mechanical Monarch
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and Technology by E.C. Tubb
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Tech news articles related to works by E.C. Tubb
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
