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"...a market economy is essentially a genetic algorithm for solving resource allocation problems..."
- Charles Stross
 |
| Asteroid Mining (Blasting) | ||
| Setting charges on an asteroid. |
| The brothers reached the ship and Vince knelt to connect the wires to the detonator. The nitro was planted in
shallow holes, with care taken that the charge was not
excessive. With the slight gravity, too large a charge
would simply blast a portion of the ore-bearing slab into
space, possibly to be lost forever. This had happened
several times before they had learned just how much
nitro to use.
"Hang on!"cautioned Vince. Vernon grasped a rung set in the side of the Space Pup. Vince slid his arm through a similar rung and with his free hand shot down the plunger of the detonator. There was no noise, only a slight flush where the charges were planted. The planetoid trembled violently beneath their feet. The Space Pup quivered and tugged at its magnetic moorings as the rock beneath it shook to the charge of the explosive. About a half mile away, where the charge had been set, a shower of small rock fragments sailed upward, but they did not drop. Out and out they sailed until they were lost to view, each becoming a separate unit in the mass of debris which formed the asteroid belt. |
| Technovelgy from Asteroid of Gold,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Wonder Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Compare to asteroid mining from Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss, the meteor miner from Salvage in Space (1933) by Jack Williamson, asteroid claim law from Jurisdiction (1941) by Nat Schachner, space placers from The Day We Celebrate (1941) by Nelson S. Bond, the asteroid mining robot from Catch That Rabbit (1944) by Isaac Asimov, the asteroid mine from Love Among the Robots (1946) by Emmett McDowell, the coal mole from The Web Between the Worlds (1979) by Charles Sheffield, and asteroid metal from The Mechanical Monarch (1958) by E.C. Tubb.
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
