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"Science fiction is what scientists would do if they could - if they had enough grant money, enough time, and enough brains to do the wonderful things they would like to do."
- Greg Bear
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| Beam Car | ||
| A vehicle like an elevator car, but which travels on a radio and magnetic beam, from the surface of a planet up to a satellite. |
| The interior of the projectilelike vehicle was padded thickly and was provided with oxygen apparatus. But no propelling mechanism was in evidence. Jor Therol, following them inside, closed and made airtight the door, then spoke softly as if in answer to the objections which had presented themselves in the minds of his guests. “Phobos,” he said, “is all you say —on the surface. We go not to the surface, however, but to the interior of the body, where is to be found the city of Scarta. This car in which we ride is driven through the tube by magnetic forces and thence over a beam of radio impulses to the receiving tube at Scarta. Hold fast now, my friends. We leave.”
 ('Lost City of Mars' by Harl Vincent) The car flung upward with a violence that flattened them all to the cushions. The pressure was unbearable as it accelerated to a terrific velocity. Almost instantly the small compartment became insufferable from the heat of atmospheric friction. Coler panted, tried to raise his head, but could not move it. His eyes burned in their sockets. Something snapped in his brain. |
| Technovelgy from Lost City of Mars,
by Harl Vincent. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1934 Additional resources -
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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.'
