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"I think engineering will supply our demand for a "spiritual" life after meat death."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Puff (Puff Balls) | ||
| Material that is used to help Skyrines dropped to the surface of Mars get rid of some of that excess velocity. |
Okay, you've arrived in orbit around Mars. What's a (fast) way to get to your destination on the surface?
| We ride ten to a [aero] shield for a few minutes... we all roll off...
My drop pack spins out millions of threads like gossamer, almost invisibly thin. We call this puff. The threads expand to a lumpy ball fifty meters wide, which wobbles and snatches at Mars's thin, thin air - and then gloms onto other balls, other Skyrines enveloped in puff. All around our jammed puffballs, curling thread tips burn away... |
| Technovelgy from War Dogs,
by Greg Bear. Published by Orbit in 2014 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the ablative heat shield from EE 'Doc' Smith's 1934 novel Triplanetary.
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
