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"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."
- Frederik Pohl

Gravitational Disks  
  Maintain your footing on those low-gravity celestial bodies.  

He turned to face one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen - a golden-haired bit of femininity whose shapely form was further accentuated by a range costume, consisting of a tight-fitting pair of breeches and a glistening shirt made of glass cloth. Strapped to her feet were large discs which, Conavan judged, were to give her better support on this planet of uncertain footing and weak gravitational attraction...

He climbed a steep slope and finally came to a rocky plateau where he found three Earth burros calmly waiting. They too wore large ground gravitational disks on their hoofs...

Technovelgy from Revolt on Io, by Jack West.
Published by Amazing Stories in 1940
Additional resources -

Here's what happens when you don't have them:

...Quirk Conavan dismounted and stumbled through the heavy moss. He had no gravitational shoes and floated along clumsily.

See also the neutronium slippers from Revolt on the Tenth World (1940), by Edmond Hamilton., the magnetic shoes from Murray Leinster's 1953 novel Space Tug, the magnetized boots from Lost Rocket (1941), by Manly Wade Wellman, the steel-lined space boots from Roamer of the Stars (1938) by Clyde Wilson and the grip shoes from the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Revolt on Io
  More Ideas and Technology by Jack West
  Tech news articles related to Revolt on Io
  Tech news articles related to works by Jack West

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