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"...the space defense initiative drove the USSR bankrupt, and it originated at my house in Tarzana."
- Larry Niven
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| Transparent Aluminum | ||
| Invisible light steel. |
As far as I know, the first instance of the phrase "transparent aluminum".
| "This ship is five hundred feet in length, eighty feet wide amidships, and is perhaps forty-five feet high, which includes the cabin. It is built of transparent steel, the discovery of which I made while experimenting with machinery for taking substance from the air. I had already discovered the means of taking palatable food and water from the air, not to mention the salt and all other requirements of the human body. In the discovery of the metal of which this ship is built, I found that it was as bard and tough as steel, and lighter than aluminum. I therefore built my electromagnetic motors of this material. They, too, are transparent, save for the parts of copper and iron which constitute the electro-magnets. The gas bag is built of the same material, with many girders running crosswise and lengthwise of the bag. It is filled with helium, which I have also succeeded in taking from the air. I have a machine for the purpose of making each. Therefore, when your friend crashed into me near the Mohave desert and broke a dangerous hole in the forward end of the bag, I gained altitude as quickly as possible. I made the necessary amount of what you may call transparent aluminum and the necessary repair. |
| Technovelgy from The Space Hermit,
by E. Edsel Newton. Published by Amazing Stories in 1929 Additional resources -
|
This is what it looked like:
I gasped. I could not doubt Sails.
"I circled and started back to get a good view of whatever it was up there. I got only a glimpse of it before it disappeared like a bullet into the sky above. It looked like a huge glass fish turned on its side with a cabin suspended underneath, and it was transparent and I could see inside the thing.
For those who are curious, the first appearance (!) of Wonder Woman's invisible jet was in 1942.
It seemed like a sort of dirigible car made of glass and there was a man standing inside it and staring at us. That's all I saw of him when Claxon smashed the Waco right into the thing."
('The Space Hermit' by E. Edsel Newton)
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| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
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'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
