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"I can remember when the first pulsars were discovered. I was able to go and sit down and listen to graduate students talking about what their theories, to explain what pulsars really were."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Meteor-Spotting Radar | ||
| A device to warn spacecraft of oncoming meteors. |
This is an early reference to a necessary device for space travel.
| The sweep of ... meteor-spotting equipment would pass a spot in micro-microseconds at a hundred miles...
Spacecraft were protected from meteors by means of radar that was coupled to the steering panels of the ships; when a meteor threatened, the ship merely turned aside by that fraction of a degree that gave it safety. |
| Technovelgy from Recoil,
by George O. Smith. Published by Street and Smith in 1943 Additional resources -
|
Not that spacecraft range the solar system without concern for orbiting rocks:
Like all long-range cruises, the Empress of Kolain will hoist herself slightly above the plane of the ecliptic to avoid the swarm of meteors that follow about the Sun in the same plane as the planets...
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More Ideas
and Technology from Recoil
More Ideas
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Tech news articles related to Recoil
Tech news articles related to works by George O. Smith
| Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside? |
| Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space |
| Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic |
| Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
