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"I was involved in a cloning project. .. to send me into outer space along with a lot of other people. Not the whole me - just a hair from my head, while I still had some. I would thus pop up in another galaxy in the distant future."
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![]() A roofed enclosure is under construction on an asteroid; the fabric will be like a tent over a small valley.
Ordinary spider silk is very tough; it is a protein fiber that has a tensile strength comparable to that of high-grade steel and about half that of fibers like Kevlar. Efforts to make garments with it date back to 1709 (if not earlier), when gloves woven from spider silk were presented to the Academy of Science in Paris.
I can't find any clear evidence that synthetic spider silk as described by Heinlein was sought prior to the publication of the story in 1940. There have been recent attempts to create artificial or synthetic spider silk:
Weaving with silk from silkworms is at least 5,000 years old and silkworms have been bred for much of that time.
Compare to silksteel from Alpha Centauri (1990) by Sid Meier and
Plasto-textile from Foundation (1951) by Isaac Asimov. Also, see goat/spider silk from Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood. Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
Giving Snakes Their Legs Back
Then some unknown race had chanced upon the dreamers and decided to 'help them out.'
'Ring Nation' Show Predicted By William Gibson In 1999
'... you had your trademark Lucky Dragon Global Interactive Video Column outside.'
SolarXOne Solar-Powered Drone Flies (almost) Forever
'It's an Indian Air Force drone; its solar cells could power an entire farm.'
Virtual Co-Embodyment - Two People Control One Virtual Body
'... we were supposed to be forming five unit composites first."
The Wanderer: Eyebot From Fallout, Eye From Zelazny
'We send our eyes on their appointed rounds, and they can hover or soar or back up...'
Experts Decry Planet-Scale Schemes To Limit Global Heating
'Light from the sun hit those little spheres and bounced.'
NAVER Labs Haptic Device 2.0 Robot vs. IKEA
'... the two pairs of waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
Spaceships Should Last So Long
'THE SPACE VESSEL was traveling swiftly… For over five thousand years they had Voyaged on and on.’
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