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
"The primary attraction [of writing sf] is the sheer pleasure of creating something from whole cloth."
- Dan Simmons
 |
| Asteroid-Metal | ||
| Metal mined from asteroids. |
Sooner or later, humanity will need to go into space for more raw materials. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain enough iron-nickel ore to supply our annual needs for iron for about the next million years (it contains 1.7 times ten to the nineteenth kilograms).
| "We can get our water from the pole, our food from the yeast vats, our building materials from the oxidized minerals in the sand... We can even fuel the space ships and mine the Asteroid Belt for rare metals..."
Lars raised himself on one elbow. "As things are now we depend on Earth to buy our asteroid-metal and supply things we can't do without. |
| From The Mechanical Monarch,
by E.C. Tubb. Published by Ace Books in 1958 Additional resources -
|
I don't know who first suggested the idea of mining the asteroids. The idea appears in science fiction by 1946, if not earlier, in Love Among the Robots by Emmett McDowell.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Mechanical Monarch
More Ideas
and Technology by E.C. Tubb
Tech news articles related to The Mechanical Monarch
Tech news articles related to works by E.C. Tubb
| Vantablack Is Blacker Than Your Black |
| Shatterproof Phone Screens Coming Soon |
| 'Smart Silk' In Quantity |
| Home Made Lightsaber? |
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 Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'I had a small can of powdered alcohol disguised as tooth powder...'
'The jeweled hands clutching drinks (and the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers)...'
'It cut her out of the stream of vehicles and reduced the speed of her car...'
'A planet-wide chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service.'
