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"I am first of all not a science fiction writer … I write, I suppose, what the Latin Americans call magic realism."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| Lifezone | ||
| An enclosed biosphere; a pod-like greenhouse attached to a space-going vessel. |
These spaces, or devices, could be easily moved. They could be hung in places to take advantage of space or sunlight.
| He puffed heavily as he angled around the bulbous lifezones - huge bubbles extruded from the sleek lines of the Argo, like immense, bruised bodies of parasites. Inside, their opalescent walls ran with dewdrops, shimmering moist jewels hanging a bare finger's width away from hard vacuum. Green fronds pressed here and there against the stretched walls - a sight which at first had terrified him, until he understood that somehow the rubbery yet glassy stuff could take the pokes and presses of living matter without splitting. |
| From Tides of Light,
by Gregory Benford. Published by Bantam in 1989 Additional resources -
|
This approach can be contrasted with the use of large hydroponics farms, which have a more industrial flavor to them. The lifezones are themselves of a lifelike form, rather than looking like a factory.
Compare to the spaceship garden from The Heritage of the Earth (1932) by Harley S. Aldinger,
Martian sawgrass from QRM - Interplanetary (1942) by George O. Smith, the
asteroid garden from Asteroid of Fear (1951) by Raymond Z. Gallun,
bubbleworld from At the Bottom of a Hole (1966) by Larry Niven and the
lunar greenhouse tunnel from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert Heinlein.
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and Technology from Tides of Light
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Tech news articles related to Tides of Light
Tech news articles related to works by Gregory Benford
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- Giant Space Vegetables Now On Earth!
- Space Agriculture For Long-Term Space Exploration
- Harvest-Time On The International Space Station
- NASA Harvests Lettuce On ISS
- Underwater Balloon Gardens
- Tasty Space Lettuce!
- BioPod Inflatable Membrane From Interstellar Lab
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| Kinetic Buildings And Psychotropic Houses |
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