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"Beyond a thousand years from now humans are not quite recognizably human, and I have trouble finding characters."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Airtight Tent | ||
| A temporary structure for living on an airless moon or asteroid. |
You've just homesteaded an asteroid, and you've been left there with your family. The first requirement: shelter, of course.
| Inside his space suit, he had begun to sweat furiously. And it was more because of the tension of his nerves than because of the vigor with which he plied his pinchbar, doing the first task which had to be done. Steel ribbons were snapped, nails were yanked silently from the great box, boards were jerked loose.
In another minute John Endlich and his wife were setting up an airtight tent, which, when the time came, could be inflated from compressed-air bottles. They worked somewhat awkwardly, for their instruction period had been brief, and they were green; but the job was speedily finished. The first requirement—shelter—was assured. |
| Technovelgy from Asteroid of Fear,
by Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Planet Stories in 1951 Additional resources -
|
What would it be like to spend your first night in an airtight tent on an asteroid with your family? Gallun uses his imagination to help us imagine it:
Peering from the small plastic windows of the tent, he kept watching for hulking black shapes to silhouette themselves against the stars...
Otherwise, from all around, the stillness of the vacuum was absolute.
Compare this to the Igloo Inflatable Moon Habitat from Arthur C. Clarke's 1961 novel A Fall of Moondust and the synthetic spider silk inflatable roof from Robert Heinlein's 1939 story Misfit.
In another minute the small but dazzling sun had disappeared behind the broken mountains, as Vesta, unspherical and malformed, tumbled rather than rotated on its center of gravity. And several hours later, amid heavy cooking odors inside the now inflated plastic bubble that was the tent, Endlich was sprawled on his stomach, unable, through well-founded worry, even to remove his space suit or to allow his family to do so, though there was breathable air around them. They lay with their helmet face-windows open.
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| Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now |
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'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
'We had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect.'
'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
