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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Hand-Jetting | ||
| Making use of hand-held rockets or other reaction devices to move through space. |
| He just couldn't think of life without the joy and lift that comes of plunging into space with the controls of a thousand thunders under the fingertips. What surface job offered the thrill of hand-jetting across ten miles of bucking emptiness to make fast a line to an inert wreck ? |
| Technovelgy from A Question of Salvage,
by Malcolm Jameson. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1939 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the reaction pistol from Martian Guns (1932) by Stanley D. Bell, the metal solvent ray thrower from Lost Rocket (1941) by Manly Wade Wellman and the Pistol 'Rocket' (1931) from Buck Rogers: 2430 AD (1931) by Nowlan and Calkin.
Also, compare this method of moving between objects in space with the spring-loaded broomstick from Arthur C. Clarke's 1952 story Islands in the Sky, Personal Jet Thrust from Robert Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet and Electrical Tether from Garrett P. Serviss' 1898 story Edison's Conquest of Mars.
I can't resist this perfect match from the 2019 movie The Martian, when character Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) goes "full-Iron Man" to save himself by actually "hand-jetting":
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Tech news articles related to works by Malcolm Jameson
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| Chrysalis Generation Ship to Alpha Centauri |
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'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'
'... with the Master-operator all you have to do is push one! A remarkable achievement!'
'Not like me. A T-1000, advanced prototype. A mimetic poly-alloy. Liquid metal.'
'It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'
