Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Why does a creative person create? It's a type of compulsion. I like to explore new ideas."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Space Transfer Station | ||
| An orbiting space station primarily used as a stepping-off point from Earth. |
In the novel, Circum-Terra was a great hodgepodge of efforts made at different times.
| Circum-Terra was a great confused mass in the sky. It had been built, rebuilt, added to, and modified over the course of years for a dozen different purposes - weather observation station, astronomical observatory, meteor count station, television relay, guided missile control station, high-vacuum strain-free physics laboratory, strain-free germ-free biological experiment station, and many other uses.
But most importantly it was a freight and passenger transfer station in space, the place where short-range winged rockets from Earth met the space liners that plied between the planets. For this purpose, it had fueling tanks, machine shops, repair cages that could receive the largest liners and the smallest rockets, and a spinning, pressurized drum - "Goddard House" - which provided artificial gravity and Earth atmosphere for passengers and for the permanent staff of Circum-Terra. |
| From Between Planets,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1951 Additional resources -
|
As a space station, compare to the brick moon from The Brick Moon (1869) by Edward Everett Hale, the city of space from The Prince of Space (1931) by Jack Williamson, the New Moon Casino from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson, the asteroid space station from Misfit (1939) by Robert Heinlein, the Venus Equilateral Relay Station from QRM - Interplanetary (1942) by George O. Smith, Wheelchair from Waldo (1942) by Robert Heinlein, the Sargasso Asteroid from The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester, the tether space station from Tank Farm Dynamo (1983) by David Brin and the high orbit archipelago from Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) by William Gibson.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Between Planets
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to Between Planets
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
| Spaceships Should Last So Long |
| Space Station Shutters |
| MIT Proposes Space Bubbles To Combat Climate Change, Misses The Point Of Space Bubbles |
| Study Reveals Effect Of Space Travel On The Brain |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'... the two pairs of waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
'THE SPACE VESSEL was traveling swiftly… For over five thousand years they had Voyaged on and on.’
'They circled the vast audiences, dancing, twittering, chirping...'
'The sun-quilt was a patchwork of colors and materials on the inward side, but silvered on the outward side...'
'Jim, I saw them reduce four of my doctors and nurses into those little cubes!'
'Fats Jordan was hanging in the center of the Big Glass Balloon, hugging his guitar to his massive black belly above his purple shorts..'
'When confronted by hills, or rough terrain, it did not stop, but simply slowed until the task demanded equaled its steady power output.'
'... the brain is no longer subjected to the accustomed pull, and it expands slightly in all directions.'
