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"If you have a gut response to a story, you are not responding to something new ..you are really responding to a story you were told when you were six or seven…"
- Samuel R. Delany
 |
| Tractor Boots | ||
| Space suit footgear that has atom-driven caterpillar treads. |
| HIS EQUIPMENT consisted chiefly of a highly developed space armor. The thing was massive. Each foot was a miniature atom-powered tractor. A man within the suit could withdraw his arms from the sleeves of the intricate, versatile thing, and reach the food supplies contained in pockets arranged all around the spacious interior. There were air-purifiers, of course, and water generators. The leg joints of the armor could be locked so that a man could sleep — if he could sleep in an erect position — while the little tractors on his boots carried him on and on.
 (Tractor Boots from 'Magician of Dream Valley' cover by Raymond Z. Gallun) |
| Technovelgy from Magician of Dream Valley,
by Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1938 Additional resources -
|
Here are some additional mentions of tractor boots in the story:
Tense with nerve strain. Jack hurried as much as he could. Once on the valley floor, he set his tractor boots to top speed. Thus he rushed forward...
Long-time readers will no doubt recall the tele-motor-coasters from Hugo Gernsback's 1911 classic Ralph 124c 41+.
Jack began to climb down the rugged slope toward the bottom of Dream Valley. His armor was massive, but the low Lunar gravity gave it little weight, and his tractor boots, though clumsy, were equipped with sharp lugs that gripped well the pumicelike rock...
(Tractor Boots from 'Magician of Dream Valley' by Raymond Z. Gallun)
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Tech news articles related to Magician of Dream Valley
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Tractor Boots-related
news articles:
- Shift Moonwalkers Help You Walk Faster? How About Tractor Treads!
| SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha |
| NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts |
| Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn |
| Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail? |
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
