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"The way you write science fiction is: you sit down at your writing machine and you open your mind to the first thought that comes through."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Inflatable Air Lock | ||
| Air lock making use of inflatable side walls to achieve large size. |
This is a very early reference to the idea of using inflatable modules of any kind in space, as well as to the idea of using an inflatable air lock.
| The net and the plastic sidewalls were, of course, the method by which a really large airlock was made practical. When this ship was about to take off again, pumps would not labor for hours to pump the air out. The sidewalls would inflate and closely enclose the ship's hull, and so force the air in the lock back into the ship. Then the pumps would work on the air behind the inflated walls—with nets to help them draw the wall-stuff back to let the ship go free. The lock could be used with only fifteen minutes for pumping instead of four hours. |
| Technovelgy from Space Tug,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Not known in 1953 Additional resources -
|
Apparently, the first-ever spacewalk, by Alexi Leonov in 1965, featured an inflatable airlock. The Voskhod spacecraft itself was far too small for a self-contained airlock, so they made an inflatable one that extended outside the vehicle.
I wonder if the Russians were reading up on American sf, or if there is an earlier source for the idea. Anyone?
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
