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| Braking Disks | ||
| Used when the ship is falling through a planetary atmosphere. |
| "We must put out the braking disks, doctor!" called the engineer.
As viewed from the outside, there now came from the nose of the ship (which pointed backward) a cable, on which there were arranged certain distances thin metal disks, which were bent somewhat backward like cones, the result looking like the familiar tufts on the tail of a child's kite. One after another these disks glowed brightly and were worn away and burned by air resistance and the resulting heat, along with their cable, which burned like a candle wick. But new disks kept coming out on more cable. In this way it was possible to convert the tremendous force latent in the motion of the ship into air whirls and heat in a gradual fashion, and by sacrificing the metal disks the ship itself was saved from burning. |
| Technovelgy from A Daring Trip To Mars,
by Max Valier. Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the ablative heat shield from Triplanetary (1934) by EE 'Doc' Smith.
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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.'
