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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Face-Plate | ||
| The transparent front of a space suit helmet. |
First use of this phrase.
| Back in the control room, Dunark and Sitar let their pressure decrease gradually to that of the terrestrial vessel and removed the face-plates from their helmets |
| Technovelgy from Skylark Three,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Murray Leinster used the same phrase just a year later, in The Power Planet:
The girl was clad in a suit exactly like his own.
Baggy and clumsy, with an effect of transverse striping on every part of it, which was the wire reinforcement.
She fumbled awkwardly with her own face-plate. It
was three plates of Caldwell glass, which is opaque to
radiations having a heat-effect.
Compare to the transparent space-helmet from The Sargasso of Space (1931) by Edmond Hamilton and the space helmet from The Disc-Men of Jupiter (1931) by Manly Wade Wellman.
He buckled the last breast-strap, closed the face-
plate of his helmet and tried out the air-supply,
and opened the face-plate again.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Skylark Three
More Ideas
and Technology by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
Tech news articles related to Skylark Three
Tech news articles related to works by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
| Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft |
| Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars |
| Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris |
| Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand |
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'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
