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posted by martyb on Wednesday February 13 2019, @01:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the cell-ular-automaton dept.

March: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse #1) by Dennis Taylor

Discuss The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein in the comments below.

Fiasco was translated into English in 1988 by Michael Kandel:

Fiasco (Polish: Fiasko) is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem, first published in a German translation in 1986. The book, published in Poland the following year, is a further elaboration of Lem's skepticism: in Lem's opinion, the difficulty in communication with alien civilizations is cultural disparity rather than spatial distance. The failure to communicate with an alien civilization is the main theme of the book.

Previously: Announcement postMars, Ho!FoundationThe Three-Body ProblemSnow Crash


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 13 2019, @12:58PM (10 children)

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Wednesday February 13 2019, @12:58PM (#800576) Homepage Journal

    You'd need a repair technology that would quickly fix leaks and recapture volatiles that had escaped. You *might* be able to justify that with nano-tech, but I'm not sure...and in any case he didn't.)

    Heinlein actually addresses some of this (via a short story whose name escapes me at the moment), using gas filled sacs of sticky materials. When a breach of atmosphere containment occurs, the sacs are blown out toward the breach where they open and fill the breach with an epoxy that seals the breach and freezes in place as a temporary fix.

    All that said, *MOST* science fiction should be read as a sub-category of fantasy. And if you do that, then it works as a really enjoyable story with a few plausible gadgets. That was the first popularization I saw for the lunar launcher.

    I'd say that all science fiction *and* fantasy are subgenres of speculative fiction [wikipedia.org], not that SF is a sub-genre of fantasy.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:35PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:35PM (#800593)

    FWIW, the story you are thinking of is “Gentlemen, Be Seated”, which is collected in The Green Hills of Earth.

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:51PM (1 child)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:51PM (#800670) Journal

    I don't think you realize the degree of the problem. Even when everything is carefully maintained with current technology you get leaks to a degree that is nearly intolerable. You're going to need something a lot better than just bubbles and self-sealing tires. You're, at minimum, going to need an energy efficient pump that can pump from near vacuum into higher pressure. (That would let you get away with that "self-sealing goop" if use used multiple layers of enclosure. (Two might work, but the fewer layers, the better your pumps need to be.)

    Now imagine an anarchist system where the public enclosure gets that kind of maintenance. Building code enforcement? He talked about rationing air, and air payment taxes, but he didn't talk about how cheaters are detected. (He did mention expelling into vacuum those accused by a mob ... and he presumed that they accusation was correct.)

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    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 13 2019, @07:38PM

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Wednesday February 13 2019, @07:38PM (#800707) Homepage Journal

      I don't think you realize the degree of the problem. Even when everything is carefully maintained with current technology you get leaks to a degree that is nearly intolerable. You're going to need something a lot better than just bubbles and self-sealing tires. You're, at minimum, going to need an energy efficient pump that can pump from near vacuum into higher pressure. (That would let you get away with that "self-sealing goop" if use used multiple layers of enclosure. (Two might work, but the fewer layers, the better your pumps need to be.)

      Now imagine an anarchist system where the public enclosure gets that kind of maintenance. Building code enforcement? He talked about rationing air, and air payment taxes, but he didn't talk about how cheaters are detected. (He did mention expelling into vacuum those accused by a mob ... and he presumed that they accusation was correct.)

      I'm really sorry that a dead guy's writing doesn't meet your engineering or political standards. That must be a really difficult cross to bear.

      Would you like a hug? Although I imagine that another mechanism [wikipedia.org] would work better for you in this circumstance.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 13 2019, @10:04PM (5 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday February 13 2019, @10:04PM (#800750) Journal

    Regarding the epoxy balloons, are you sure that was Heinlein? I remember something like that but don't remember it being Heinlein. I do remember epoxy and a plate patch being used in "Farmer in the Sky" (as well as Bill's scout uniform shirt) for emergency repair in a strike that breached Bill's compartment.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 13 2019, @11:31PM (4 children)

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Wednesday February 13 2019, @11:31PM (#800784) Homepage Journal

      Actually, an AC helpfully provided the name of the story [soylentnews.org]. It is by Heinlein (as I remembered) and is entitled Gentlemen, Be Seated [wikipedia.org].

      That said, the idea of using epoxy-filled balloons wasn't originated by Heinlein and I'm sure it's been used many times by a variety of authors.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:22AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:22AM (#800890)

        In 'Gentlemen be Seated' he patched the hole by sitting on it.

        • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:44AM

          by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:44AM (#800896) Homepage Journal

          In 'Gentlemen be Seated' he patched the hole by sitting on it.

          Yup. Since the breach was too large to be plugged by the epoxy-filled balloons, the guy spread the epoxy on his ass and sat down.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday February 14 2019, @02:57PM (1 child)

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday February 14 2019, @02:57PM (#801002) Journal

        Aha, excellent! Wikipedia tells me it was included in The Past Through Tomorrow which I read when I was a teenager. It was a used copy that eventually disintegrated on me. When I read the summary I remembered it from the sitting on the leak part, but not the epoxy balloon as part of that story.

        Memory is the first thing to go, they tell me. What were we talking about?

        --
        This sig for rent.
        • (Score: 3, Funny) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:49PM

          by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:49PM (#801198) Homepage Journal

          Memory is the first thing to go, they tell me. What were we talking about?

          The PDR [wikipedia.org] defines that as C.R.S. Syndrome [onlineslangdictionary.com].

          It's incurable and quite widespread.

          Who are you? Why am I on this website? What is a website?

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr