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"By the time I can take people out to where Hubble is looking, they won't be human anymore, by a long way."
- Larry Niven
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| Space-Drive | ||
| A means of providing propulsion for a spacecraft. |
As far as I know, the first use of this general term.
| There we shall have plenty of work to do, but on the way we are going to stop at Mars and pick up that very valuable ship of theirs and make a very careful examination for possible new weapons, their system of speed-drive, and their regular space-drive, if it is not the same. |
| Technovelgy from Invaders From The Infinite,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Experimental Publishing Co. in 1932 Additional resources -
|
In case you were curious, and wanted more details:
Compare to Lyle drive from Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) by Robert Heinlein, the
ion drive from Equalizer (1947) by Jack Williamson, the asymptotic drive from Imperial Earth (1976) by Arthur C. Clarke and the gravity drive from Star Ship (1950) by Poul Anderson.
Their regular drive is a molecular drive with lead disintegration apparatus for the energy, cosmic ray absorbers for the heating, and a drive much like ours. Their speed drive is a time distortion apparatus, I'll wager. Time distinction offers an easy solution of speed. All speed is relative--relative to other bodies, but also to time-speed. But we'll see.
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'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
