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"I do think there is a link in that in both cases, writing fiction or writing a computer program, at any given moment you're focusing on a very specific and particular thing—one word, one line of code, whatever."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Turnover | ||
| The point in a torchship's trajectory when it must flip over and point its fiery tail toward its destination to decelerate. |
As far as I know, this is the first use of this term.
| Hadley cracked an air valve beside a circular air door. The hiss of entering air crescendoed and died, and then Hadley cracked the door that opened in upon the huge driver tube. With casual disregard for the annular electrodes that filled the tube and the sudden death that would come if the pilot sent the driving voltages surging into the electrodes, Hadley climbed to the top of the tube and used a spanner to remove four huge bolts. A handy differential pulley permitted him to lower the near-exhausted cathode from the girders to the air door where it was hauled to the deck. A fresh cathode was slung to the pulley and hoisted to place. Hadley bolted it tight and clambered back into the ship...
 (Differential pulley from 'Off the Beam" by George O. Smith) "Probably this other thing will go on until we hit an emergency; then we shall prove that old statement about a loaf of bread being the maternal parent of a locomotive.” Channing lit a cigarette, and puffed deeply. “Where do we stand?” “Thirty hours out,” answered the steward. “About ready for turnover. Tom Bennington laughed. He was an old-timer, and he said in a reminiscent tone: “I remember when we used to do that on manual. There were as many cases of mal de void during cathode change as during turnover. Autopilots are the nuts — look! We’re about to swing right now, and I’ll bet a fiver that the folks below won’t know a thing about it.” |
| Technovelgy from Off the Beam,
by George O. Smith. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1944 Additional resources -
|
Here's another quote from Smith’s story:
Fans of Robert Heinlein may recall this use from Double Star (1955):
Compare to negative acceleration from Skylark of Space (1928) by E.E. 'Doc' Smith and skew-flip turnover, a masterly mathematical treatment by Robert Heinlein in Have Space Suit - Will Travel (1958).
Forty-one hours later, the Relay Queen made turnover and began to decelerate.
U
At turnover we got that one-gravity rest that Dak had promised. We never were in free fall, not for an instant; instead of putting out the torch, which I gather they hate to do while under way, the ship described what Dak called a 180-degree skew turn.
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