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"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Spectro-Flash Analysis | ||
| Device for determining the content of meteorites. |
Leave it to Jack Williamson to elaborate on the life of asteroid miners.
| His welding arc dangled at his belt, the electrode still glowing red. He had just finished securing to this slowly-accumulated mass of iron his most recent find, a meteorite the size of his head.[1] Five perilous weeks he had labored, to collect this rugged lump of metal—a jagged mass, some ten feet in diameter, composed of hundreds of fragments, that he had captured and welded together. His luck had not been good. His findings had been heart-breakingly small; the spectro-flash analysis had revealed that the content of the precious metals was disappointingly minute. [Footnote 1: The meteor or asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is "mined" by such adventurers as Thad Allen for the platinum, iridium and osmium that all meteoric irons contain in small quantities. The meteor swarms are supposed by some astronomers to be fragments of a disrupted planet, which, according to Bode's Law, should occupy this space.] |
| Technovelgy from Salvage in Space,
by Jack Williamson. Published by Astounding Stories in 1933 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the process by which Impactor Determines Composition from The Mechanical Monarch (1958) by E.C. Tubb.
See also the Reflectocosmic Spectrometer from Buck Rogers: 2430 AD (1929) by Nowlan and Calkin, the Electro-Telescope from Blood of the Moon (1936) by Ray Cummings and the Telespectroscope from Cosmic Quest (1936) by Edmond Hamilton.
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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.'
