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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge
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| Dust-Cruiser | ||
| Specialized lunar transport able to negotiate dust-filled craters on the Moon. |
At the edge of a great (fictional) lunar expanse called the Sea of Thirst, the dust is many feet deep. What would be the best means of transportation?
| Selene was virtually a grounded spaceship; she had to be, since she was traveling in a vacuum... Though she never left the surface of the Moon, and was propelled by electric motors instead of rockets, she carried all the equipment of a full-fledged ship of space...
Selene was the very first of her line... some had wanted to make her like a stern-wheeler, but the more efficient submerged fans carried the day. As they drilled through the dust, they produced a wake like that of a high-speed mole, but it vanished within seconds, leaving the Sea unmarked by any signs of the boat's passage. |
| Technovelgy from A Fall of Moondust,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Harcourt, Brace and World in 1961 Additional resources -
|
As it turns out, it is unlikely that any boats will be needed on the Moon; the lunar dust appears to be no more than a few centimeters thick anywhere on the Moon.
Compare to the volplane from Blood of the Moon (1936) by Ray Cummings.
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Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
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| Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn |
| Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail? |
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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.'
