Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"It was [H.G. Wells'] adolescent fiction, his imaginative stories, that live forever - and yet are not acknowledged in literature classes as being great literature. So to hell with the academics!"
- Greg Bear
 |
| Jupiter Mining Shoes | ||
| Specialized footgear for walking on the Great Red Spot. |
| On Earth radium was the rarest of known elements and had to be patiently isolated from tons of uranium residues. But on Jupiter radium existed in a free state in the turgid, semiliquid crust area.
...intrepid Earthman — dredgers and miners — had operated them in ghastly loneliness of spirit in a world where human beings moved with the slowness of exhaustion, incased in protective suits that weighed two hundred pounds, and wearing upon their feet immense shoes that mushroomed on the surface that was neither liquid nor solid, but an amalgam alien to Earth Hamden’s nerves shrieked warnings, protested that it was time to quit. The brief, ten-hour Jovian day was drawing to a close amidst such a plethora of brightness that it seemed to be just beginning. Harnden turned slowly about on his huge flattened shoes, and moved toward the little atmosphere transport which floated in the shadow of the Foam Station a few feet from where he was standing. The turgid substance beneath him was unimaginably queer. The immense surfaces of Hamden’s shoes plopped across it, sinking through the spreading scum from the sprayer, but making only slight depressions, which immediately filled, in the basic substance of the Jeel. By ultimate analysis, it was perhaps more solid than liquid. But it was sufficiently liquid to rear into huge waves, cones and pinnacles of seething menace when the sprayer ceased to function. |
| Technovelgy from Red Storm on Jupiter,
by Frank Belknap Long, Jr.. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1936 Additional resources -
|
This is what it is like to walk on Jupiter's Great Red Spot:
Without Jeel shoes a man would be mired. He would sink in up to his knees, his waist.
His immense shoes left phantasmal tracks of vivid red, tracks that quickly vanished as he moved across the sluggishly streaming, diluent crust...
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Red Storm on Jupiter
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Belknap Long, Jr.
Tech news articles related to Red Storm on Jupiter
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Belknap Long, Jr.
| SpaceX's Starman Tesla Roadster In Space |
| Warp Drive Tech Back On The Menu |
| JAXA Int Ball 2 Coming Right Along As Star Wars Remote |
| Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
