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"I'm strictly an ivory-tower person. I can explain things but I can't do things."
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What would it be like to be like to put on your air-tight suit and step outside your space ship? The fictional Lord Kelvin had some advice:
"Quite right on general principles, young man," replied the great savant, "but beware in what manner you step off. Remember, if you give your body an impulse sufficient to carry it away from the car to any considerable distance, you will be unable to get back again, unless we can catch you with a boathook or a fishline. Out there in empty space you will have nothing to kick against, and you will be unable to propel yourself in the direction of the car, and its attraction is so feeble that we should probably arrive at Mars before it had drawn you back again."
All this was, of course, perfectly self-evident, yet I believe that but for the warning word of Lord Kelvin, I should have been rash enough to step out into empty space with sufficient force to have separated myself hopelessly from the electrical ship.
Fortunately, the fictional Mr. Edison of the novel had a solution.
In modern times, astronauts usually use physical tethers to make sure they don't drift off. Ed White was the first American to perform a spacewalk in june of 1965. Alexei Leonov was first - his spacewalk came in March of 1965. Ah, the space race!
A device that is a bit more like the electrical 'tether' of the novel is the SAFER device. The Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue is worn like a backpack and has small jet thrusters to maneuver.
Compare with the Reaction Pistol from Gordon A. Giles 1937 story Diamonf Planetoid, the Broomstick from Arthur C. Clarke's 1952 novel Islands in the Sky and the Personal Jet Thrust from Robert Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet.
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