Space drive

“ A towering mechano-electrical brain almost filled the mid-section of their enormous sky rover, the receptors and converters of the free energy of space itself had been installed, and their intra-atomic space-drive, capable of developing an acceleration of only five light-veloci ties, had been replaced by Seaton's newly developed sixth-order cosmic-energy drive which could impart to the ship and its entire contents, without jolt, jar, or strain, any conceivable, almost any calculable, acceleration. ”

“ He patch-ordered it also to the basic space drive, to take over after the velocity of his ship fell below the speed at which radar became useful.
Then he waited, with one eye on the timer. The detector ship faded behind him and was lost as his lighter spacecraft responded to the drive.
He wished helplessly for an auto-timer drive, because he knew that his hand and eye were not accurate enough to do the job as smoothly as he'd have liked. He wanted a bigger ship with a monster-sized drive. ”

“ But when we discovered that his space ship was a very small one—too small to utilize the subspace drive—I knew my guess had been correct. So I tricked him into letting us get into position where we could activate the drive—and had the engineers increase the effective radius so that we could pull Clarion and her three planets into subspace with us." Hawkins paused for a few seconds as he turned back to the observation window. "We'll need every sun and every planet we can lay our hands on." ”

“ This drive, utilizing Carbolium which we have to manufacture, makes full use of space as a medium of travel. There's only one catch. We can make only a certain amount of Carbolium, and the costs of making it are astronomical. However, no matter what the expense, the supply is limited. Still, everything's fine. We use the old rockets for short distances and the interstellar drive for intergalactic trips. ”

“ On the other hand, when we do get out and get started we will go faster than light, and we'd be hopelessly beyond the range of the molecular motion drive in an instant. In other words, if the space-control drive doesn't work, we can't come back, and if it does work, there's no need to come back. ”

“ He put his finger on the stud that would throw the ship into transmitter-drive, aimed straight at the disk of planet against the inferno of sun beyond. There was nothing more certain than that to miss the planet would fling them instantly into the sun. And there was nothing more absurd than to expect to come out of transmitter-drive within any given number of millions of miles, much less within a few thousands. ”

“ Neither their ships nor the freighter were equipped with interstellar drive. The rocket trail had ceased. Unless the robot were insane, and intent only on getting away from the Solar System, to drift forever in space, it had been headed for some destination.
The freighter was decelerating to match speed with that destination. Was it some planetoid far out beyond the orbit of Pluto? There were several of them out there, too far from things to be converted to space stations, containing nothing worth mining. ”

“ Millie finally managed to stem the flow. "We're not stuck—not just stuck here in orbit any longer, waiting to see what's going on on Earth," she said softly, "or what they're going to do about us 'mad scientists.' Mike and Ishie started this whole thing when one of their experiments turned out to be a space drive, and the boys are working real hard on getting a drive unit set up capable of taking our whole complex out into space. But they need somebody to tell the captain ... ”

“ There's plenty to be done. Jerry, check your scanner and detectors for possible damage. Sparks, get on the radio to Cottabus and Diogenes; tell 'em everything, and warn them to come in cautiously. Kinkare, Daley, see what you can do with the space drive. ”

“ With the tremendous field intensities available by the material engines, I can get such fields as will 'dig their toes' into space and push. [99]
"That's the drive itself. It is accelerationless, because it enfolds us, and acts equally on every atom of us. By maintaining in addition a slight artificial gravity—thanks also to the intensity of those material engine fields—we can be comfortable, while we accelerate at tremendous rates.
"That is, I think, at least allied to the Stranger's system. For the high-speed drive, I do in fact use the Uncertainty. ”

“ Then, in addition, we must have controls for the ray projector, though that must wait a while, for Dad is working on a method of doubling our range.... Oh yes, the driving units will be inside the ship now, for all our power will come from the energy of the light-matter.”
They spent the next hour in discussing the manifold details involved in the design of their space ship: the mechanism involved in transferring the light-energy to the drivers; a means of warming the ship in interstellar space; a main horizontal drive for forward and backward motion as well as braking ”

“ As there would be no resistance encountered in space, once the machine had been accelerated to its definite speed of 1000 miles per second, on leaving Sirius it would be able to make the trip across space with no expenditure of energy, until it reached its goal and slowed down to the speed of a planet. Hence no great amount of matter-fuel would be needed to drive the machine. ”

“ The fusion drive will be launched as a finished unit due to its complexity. It will be equipped with a plug-in type interface for integration with the remainder of the ship. The main structure will be a collapsible space frame, which will be erected from its stored configuration by personnel at the space station. Additional structure will also be orbited in collapsed form for erection at Space Station. ”

“ You may be twenty years older than I am; you may have been one of the pioneers in space travel; you may still be a good man if you could forget that the whole world didn't plot that accident that left you with a bad leg—but you're still taking orders from me. We have some good men in this department, and you can either keep your mouth shut and work with us or you can get out. Interstellar drive isn't the only solution to space travel and the answer to the problem is going to come from this laboratory. ”

“ The only part that would require a trial trip is the space-control apparatus, and there's no way to give that a trial trip. Remember, we have to get far enough out from the sun so that the gravitational field will be weak enough for the drive to overcome it. If we tried it this close, we'd just be trying to neutralize the sun's gravity. We'd be pouring out energy, wasting a great deal of it; but out away from the sun, we'll get most of the energy back. ”

“ He had refused to state whether he had any understanding of the stardrive by the use of which the Mars Convicts had made their mass escape from the penal settlements of the Fourth Planet sixty years before, though the drive obviously had been employed in bringing him out of the depths of interstellar space to the Solar System and Earth. ”

“ The satellites should them selves be designed on the modular principle, and tending them will drive development of technologies required to repair satellites in LEO and GEO, to assemble large satellites and space probes, and to provide flight support for missions conducted farther from the Earth. Build, test, and transfer to orbit large complex space stations. This capability derives from Shuttle beam building experiments and the assembly of modular structures and produces many of the products of this stage of development. ”

“ During the winter Mallory and I would build the space ship in the old boat house down on the beach just a few blocks from the campus.
It was really fun that winter, working late into the night putting the space ship together. Our crowning achievement was retractible wings for steering the ship in atmosphere. In space, of course, steering would have to be done by small steering rockets. The main drive force, though, would be the missing link, as we had been calling it all winter. ”

“ Here there is a reaction to the original action out in space and new atoms are born, simple ones of hydrogen. But what could be sweeter for use in one of our regular atomic motors? The energy of disintegration is used to drive the generators of the artificial gravity field, and there you are. Sounds complicated, but really isn't. And nothing to get out of whack either."
eats the rocket motors and bulky fuel of the regular liners a mile, doesn't it? But since when are you a navigator, Mado?"
"Don't need to be a navigator with the Nomad. She's automatic, once the controls are set. ”

“ It had been manned by a dozen adventurous people, captained by Crownwall, and had headed out on its ion drive until it was safely clear of the warping influence of planetary masses. Then, after several impatient days of careful study and calculation, the distorter drive had been activated, for the first time in Earth's history, and, for the twelve, the stars had winked out.
The men of Earth had decided that it should work in theory. They had built the drive—a small machine, as drives go—but they had never dared to try it, close to a planet. ”

“ The Team defined a general concept of space exploration centered on the notion of an autonomous extrasolar exploratory machine system. This system incorporates advanced machine intelligence and robotics techniques and combines the heretofore separate and manpower-intensive phases of reconnaissance, exploration, and intensive study into a single, integrated mission. Such an automatic scientific investigation system should be useful in the exploration of distant bodies in the Solar System, such as Jupiter and its satellites ”

“ The control ship proceeded directly to the most pleasant of the planets, with its guard, and the other ships were sent to watch the planets lest the Atomic Creatures return. Then on the planet the men began to set up one of the great receiving stations. From the sides of the ships ran mighty power cables to the powerful station. Then across space there came expert engineers, workmen, instruments and tools, working machines, constructor robots, and then great pieces of machinery so huge they could send only one section at a time. ”

“ For from Brandon at the primary controls, through the power-room of the Sirius and the relay-station upon Mars, to the immense Interplanetary transmitter upon Earth, the greatest radio and television engineers of two planets were fighting overdriven equipment, trying to hold an almost impossible connection, in order that Nadia Newton's mother and sister might be present at her wedding, hundreds of millions of miles distant in space! ”

“ The apparatus, practically as you see it here, was discovered but a short time ago, in a small, rocket-propelled space-ship which we found some distance outside of the orbit of Jupiter. Its source of power had been destroyed by the cold of outer space, but re-powering it was, of course, a small matter. The crew of the vessel were all dead. They were, however, of human stock, and of a type adapted for life upon a satellite. I deduce, from your compact structure, your enormous atmospheric pressure, and your, to us, unbelievably high body temperature, that you must be planet-dwellers. ”

“ A better analogy might be made with a large electronic computer—but no terrestrial computer was ever asked to supply its own power source and to operate unattended in the vacuum of space for up to a decade.
Each Voyager spacecraft carries instruments for eleven science investigations covering visual, infrared, and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum, and other remote sensing studies of the planets and satellites; studies of radio emissions, magnetic fields, cosmic rays, and lower energy particles; plasma (ionized gases) waves and particles; and studies using the spacecraft radios. ”

“ Supplies of energy, stored and generated, must be established if extrasolar spacecraft are to survive in the depths of interstellar space far from convenient sources of power (such as stars) for a major portion of their lives. The technologies of command, control, and communication over stellar and galactic distances ultimately also must be developed. ”

“ The Earth satellite vehicle will have to prove itself as a practical base, a sort of aerial aircraft carrier from which rocket ships can operate on the Earth shuttle. Before we are ready for interplanetary travel, we will have to harness some tremendous power not now available -- perhaps cosmic rays. There may have to be other space bases established as refueling stations or navigation check points. Incredible as this sounds, intelligent scientists and engineers expect to do it in a few decades. ”

“ They could be pointed toward the ground, rearward, in a lateral direction, or in various combinations.
“A disk flying level, straight ahead, could be turned swiftly to right or left by shifting the angles of the nozzles or cutting off power from part of the group. This method of control would operate in the earth’s atmosphere and also, using rocket power, in free space, where conventional controls would be useless.” ”

“ We'll leave Earth by centrifugal force, for I can make much better speed in the atmosphere where there is plenty of power to draw on; outside I must depend solely on sunlight. We'll circle the Earth, forming an orbit just within the atmosphere, at five miles a second. We'll gradually increase the speed to about ten miles a second, at which point the ship would normally fly off into space under its own centrifugal force. With the power units we'll prevent its release until the proper moment. ”

“ The scientists quickly built a great space-flyer, a gigantic machine of over ten miles diameter, a huge sphere. And in that they established laboratories, workshops, machines, and living quarters. They took with them the finest men and women of their race, and sailed out into space, taking an orbit about the sun of Sirius. They were comfortable there in an equitable temperature, their ship lighted by the sun on one side, and dark on the other, steadily revolving on its axis like a miniature world. The foods of the people were chemically prepared, for the brain-machines had taught them how. ”