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"Cyberpunk worked when the Internet was in its hand-wound crystal radio phase, when you had to be a sort of hobbyist to do e-mail, and it all had a very steep learning curve. Those days are over."
- William Gibson
 |
| Space Raft | ||
| A kind of escape craft, or lifeboat. |
| "Why can’t we just get in our ship and go home to Earth?” she asked, as they turned back to the entrance.
“Our flier isn’t strong enough — it’s just meant to be a sort of interstellar lifeboat, a kind of space-raft to hold survivors of a wrecked ship until help comes,” he explained. “I thought you knew that.” “But why don’t they build them so that they can really travel through space?” she asked. “Think of the size they’d be, and the number of them on every liner,” he replied. “There wouldn’t be enough room. The liners are so big now that it’s a wonder they ever get off the Earth—” |
| Technovelgy from Dusk on the Moon,
by Hannes Bok. Published by Future Fantasy Science Fiction in 1943 Additional resources -
|
The same phrase is used in Super Whost (1947), a whimsical story by Margaret St. Clair:
Oona hadn’t really cared for it. They were up high enough, to see the curvature of the earth, and it had been interesting to look down and watch the weather happening below, but the raft had been under a dome, of course, and something in the set-up had made Oona dizzy whenever she thought of it. She was sure it wasn’t the same thing, not at all the same, as being on another planet.
Compare to the deceleration chambers from The Storm (1943) by AE van Vogt, the escapecraft from The Ethical Equations (1945) by Murray Leinster, the space dory from Asteroid Justice (1947) by VE Thiessen, the
emergency space-boat from Revolt of the Star Men (1932) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the survival bubble from Footfall (1985) by Niven & Pournelle, life tubes from Liners of Space (1930) by Jim Vanny, the life ship from The Invisible World by Ed Earl Repp, the emergency lifeboats from Triplanetary (1934) by 'Doc' Smith and the escape pod from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.
Oona shut the stereo off. She wasn’t interested in any prizes below the first two. A trip to Mars! Neither she nor Jick had ever been out of the earth’s atmosphere, except once when Space Ports Inc., had entertained their employees with an all-day fourth-of-July picnic on one of the Space Rafts.
('Super Whost' by Margaret St. Clair)
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| The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds |
| Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again? |
| Reflect Orbital Offers 'Sunlight on Demand' And Light Pollution |
| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
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