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"I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Volplane | ||
| A small vehicle used in transporting people around the moon's surface. |
It should be fun to get from place to place on the lunar surface.
On the rack of the corridor wall by the small air-lock entrance lay a ten-foot long volplane.*
* A Moon vehicle - a toboggan-shaped metal air sled, with low siderails equipped with gravity plates electrolyzed in the fashion of a tiny space flyer. The vehicle is impractical, largely used for sport, the safe handling of it requiring extraordinary skill, the manipulator lying flat, working its controls and maintaining balance by rapid shifting of the body from side to side. |
| From Blood of the Moon,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1936 Additional resources -
|
Even better, you can launch a volplane yourself:
Compare to the lunocycle from The Rolling Stones (1952) by Robert Heinlein,
the dust-cruiser from A Fall of Moondust (1961) by Arthur C. Clarke.
She... shoved the light bulk of the volplane with a grinding slide over the threshold of the air-lock entrance...
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