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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
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| Quartzite Leak Foil | ||
| Special material for space dome leaks. |
| Darl crawled along the wing, dragging with him a sheet of flexible quartzite. The metal foil sagged under him and slanted downward, trying like some animate thing to rid itself of the unwonted burden…
Far up in the interlaced steel of the framework, so high that to his staring comrade he seemed a naked doll, Darl stood outstretched on a level beam, his tiny arms holding a minute square against the wall. Lucky it was that he was so tall and his arms so long. For the saving plate just lapped the upper rim of the hole, and stemmed the fierce current by only a half-inch margin. |
| Technovelgy from The Great Dome of Mercury,
by Leo Zagat. Published by Astounding Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Compare to tag-along balloons from Gentlemen, Be Seated (1948) by Robert Heinlein, leak disks from Islands in the Sky (1952) by Arthur C. Clarke and plug-ups from Passage at Arms (1985) by Glen Cook.
Another way to plug holes in spacecraft or other constructions in space is to have some sort of material already present in the walls. Compare to
alpha inserts from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Schachner and Zagat, quartzite leak foil from The Great Dome of Mercury (1932) by Leo Zagat, plastifoam from Collision Orbit (1941) by Jack Williamson and self-sealing plastic from Asteroid of Fear (1951) by Raymond Z. Gallun.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Great Dome of Mercury
More Ideas
and Technology by Leo Zagat
Tech news articles related to The Great Dome of Mercury
Tech news articles related to works by Leo Zagat
| Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly |
| Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer |
| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
| FlexRAM Liquid Metal RAM And One Particular SF Movie Robot |
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'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'
'... with the Master-operator all you have to do is push one! A remarkable achievement!'
'Not like me. A T-1000, advanced prototype. A mimetic poly-alloy. Liquid metal.'
'It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'
