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"We didn't have a telephone and our family until I was about 15, in high school."
- Ray Bradbury
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| Gravity Detector | ||
| A device capable of detecting the gravitational field of a distant mass. |
As far as I know, this is the first use of this term. How could you be sure that an object was coming toward you in space if you could not see it and if it did not occult light sources?
| Professor Paxton was glancing nervously from speed indicator to gravity detector, and from gravity detector to chronometer. Presently he turned a series of six big wheels one after another. Then he shifted a little, silvery lever .from a vertical to a horizontal position. I felt the whole craft suddenly rotate in an alarming fashion, but it was all over in an instant. The flat base of the rocket was now toward the moon instead of its pointed nose. |
| Technovelgy from The Lunar Chrysalis,
by Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Amazing Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Jack Williamson makes good use of this idea in his 1936 story The Cometeers:
The gravity detector turns out to be a useful device for ordinary journeys through the solar system as well (more from The Cometeers):
"I am," Bob Star said, too busy to turn. "The gravity detector shows a mass dead ahead. Millions of tons. The deflector fields wouldn't swing it an inch.
"...there was nothing we could see with the tele-periscopes, but the gravity detectors betrayed an invisible object of fifty thousand tons, approaching behind us - as if it had followed us from Neptune."
"An asteroid?" Jay Kalam inquired. "You're certain?"
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| NASA Tests Prototype Europa Lander |
| NASA's Psyche Mission To Metal Asteroid Launches Thursday! |
| Space Weather To Universe Weather |
| That's MOXIE! Terraforming Mars Baby Steps |
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'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'
'...a prayer wheel swung into view and began spinning at a furious pace.'
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'
'It's an old model,' Rawlins said. 'I'm not sure what to do.'
'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...'
'He rode the bike with an intense lack of physical grace...'
