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"[Science fiction] is the only kind of writing that allows you to look at the world we live in and change one piece at a time."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Inflatable Living-Globe | ||
| An inflatable bubble in space, suitable for human habitation. |
| When the eviction order arrived, Fats Jordan was hanging in the center of the Big Glass Balloon, hugging his guitar to his massive black belly above his purple shorts.
The Big Igloo, as the large living-Globe was more often called, was not really made of glass. It was sealingsilk, a cheap flexible material almost as transparent as fused silica and ten thousand times tougher—quite tough enough to hold a breathable pressure of air in the hard vacuum of space.
 (Living-Globes from 'The Beat Cluster' by Fritz Leiber) “Beyond the spherical wall loomed the other and somewhat smaller balloons of the Beat Cluster, connected to each other and to the Big Igloo by three-foot-diameter cylindrical tunnels of “triple-strength tinted sealingsilk. In them floated or swam about an assemblage of persons of both sexes in informal dress and undress and engaged in activities suitable to freefall...” |
| Technovelgy from The Beat Cluster,
by Fritz Leiber. Published by Galaxy in 1961 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Winchell Chung of Project Rho for the tip on this Item.
Compare to the space bubbs from The Planet Strappers by Raymond Z. Gallun.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Beat Cluster
More Ideas
and Technology by Fritz Leiber
Tech news articles related to The Beat Cluster
Tech news articles related to works by Fritz Leiber
Inflatable Living-Globe-related
news articles:
- MIT Proposes Space Bubbles To Combat Climate Change, Misses The Point Of Space Bubbles
| Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside? |
| Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space |
| Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic |
| Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station |
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
