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"We were essentially being shell-shocked by rapid change. That was one of the things you needed science-fiction writers for back in the Sixties, because we could cope with the future."
- Peter Watts
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| Landing Arms | ||
| Arms that poke out from a space craft to allow it to land on solid ground, in gravity. |
This is an interesting variation on the idea of landing legs, as you will see.
I've included three separate quotes, indicated with ellipses.
| The lights high up on the station’s dispatching-tower, that controlled the arrival and departure of rockets, began to flash. They changed from yellow to green, then to red, and at last to pure white. At once there was a deafening downward blast from the rocket and it shot upward, its landing-arms folding along its side, and in a second had vanished.
. . . The rocket lurched and bucked, slowed. Its speed rapidly diminished, a sickening deceleration that crushed them deep in the control-chairs. The world ahead, a dark-green sphere, was shifting downward as the rocket turned in the grasp of its gravitation. They were still nearing it at terrific speed, though, with nosetubes still firing to check them... Air sang shrilly outside and Kirk’s mind automatically recorded the fact that this world had an atmosphere. The shrilling of air increased, green-clad hills and valleys rose stunningly toward them, and then at the very moment of touching Kirk’s hands flashed and the nose-tubes all blasted together with full power. There was a shock that drove them down and then upward, an instant click and clang as the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded to hold it in an erect position on the ground. Then silence. . . . KIRK and Madden found their rocket unharmed and as they had left it when they came to it again with their friends... as they had left it in the little clearing beneath the coma-sky. It was but the work of a moment to reverse it in its landing-arms so that its nose pointed upward. Then the moment of parting... Kirk and Madden... spun shut its door, and in a minute more were seated in its pilot-house as it roared upward. The world of the comet receded beneath them as the rocket’s firing-tubes drove it up and outward with quickmounting speed. |
| Technovelgy from Creatures of the Comet,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Weird Tales in 1931 Additional resources -
|
As you can see, the rocket headed toward landing nose-first, firing it's nose-tubes to slow down, and is then caught in its landing-arms. That way, it can reverse itself in its arms to take off.
Compare to the splashdown from From the Earth to the Moon (1867) by Jules Verne,
landing stage from Atomic Fire (1931) by Raymond Z. Gallun,
landing cradle from The Radium World (1932) by Frank K. Kelly,
landing on an asteroid from Murder on the Asteroid (1933) by Eando Binder,
docking-cradle from They Never Came Back (1941) by Fritz Leiber,
landing-grid from Sand Doom (1955) by Murray Leinster,
landing pit from The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester and
launching cradle from Needler (1957) by Gordon Randall Garrett.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Creatures of the Comet
More Ideas
and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
Tech news articles related to Creatures of the Comet
Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton
Landing Arms-related
news articles:
- Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS
| Denmark Joins The 'Zero Debris Charter' To Clean Up Space |
| Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle |
| Capturing Asteroids With Nets |
| Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed! |
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You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
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