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"There was a time when one old eccentric guy with a notebook could do something important to science. Now even the resources of a major university are often not enough."
- Jerry Pournelle
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| Power Planet | ||
| A satellite that supplies the Earth with power. |
| The Power Planet, of course, is that vast man-made disk of metal set spinning about the sun to supply the Earth with power. Everybody learns in his grammar-school textbooks of its construction just beyond the Moon and of its maneuvering to its present orbit by a vast expenditure of rocket fuel.
 ('Power Planet' by Murray Leinster) Only forty million miles from the sun's surface, its sunward side is raised nearly to red heat by the blazing radiation. And the shadow side, naturally, is down to the utter cold of space. There is a temperature drop of nearly seven hundred degrees between the two sides, and Williamson cells turn that heat-difference into electric current, with an efficiency of 99 percent. Then the big Dugald tubes - they are twenty feet long on the Power Planet - transform it into the beam which is focused on the Earth and delivers something over a billion horsepower to the various receivers that have been erected. The space station itself is ten miles across, and it rotates at a carefully calculated speed so that the centrifugal force at its outer edge is very nearly equal to the normal gravity of Earth. So that the nearer its center one goes, of course, the less is that force, and also the less impression of weight one has. |
| Technovelgy from The Power Planet,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Amazing Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the near-space solar energy collector from Star Maker (1937) by Olaf Stapledon, the solar station from Doom Over Venus (1940) by Edmond Hamilton, the solar energy beam from Masquerade (1941) by Clifford Simak, the solar station from Isaac Asmov's 1941 story Reason and the solar beam from The Long Way (1944) by George O. Smith.
Solar power can also be collected by focusing the sun's rays on a boiler and then using steam to generate electricity. Compare to the sun plant (solar motor) from The Lotus-Engine by Raymond Z. Gallun, published by Super Science Stories in 1940 and the the sun-engine from Valley of Lost Souls (1939) by Eando Binder.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Power Planet
More Ideas
and Technology by Murray Leinster
Tech news articles related to The Power Planet
Tech news articles related to works by Murray Leinster
Power Planet-related
news articles:
- Space Solar Power - A Truly Limitless Source
- Space-Based Sustainable Energy Policy
- Space-Based Solar Power Roundup
- Solar Power Beamed From Space Studied By Brit Boffins
- Space-Based Solar Power A Priority - European Space Agency
- Solar Power Transmitted From Orbit Down To Earth
| Will Space Stations Have Large Interior Spaces Again? |
| Reflect Orbital Offers 'Sunlight on Demand' And Light Pollution |
| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
| The First Space Warship For Space Force |
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'Across the ancient sea floor a dozen tall, blue-sailed Martian sand ships floated, like blue smoke.'
'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
