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Rocheworld
''Rocheworld'' (first published in serial form in 1982; first book publication, under the title ''The Flight of the Dragonfly'', 1984)Internet science fiction database entryThe Flight of the Dragonfly/ref> is a science fiction novel by Robert Forward which depicts a realistic interstellar mission using a laser driven light sail propulsion system to send the spaceship and a crew of 20 on a one-way journey of 5.9 light-years (ca. 34 trillion miles; ca. 56 trillion km) to explore a double planet that orbits Barnard's Star, which they call Rocheworld, and where they make many startling discoveries. It had four sequels, written in collaboration with Julie Forward Fuller and Margaret Dodson Forward, which detail the exploration of the other worlds in the Barnard System: '' Return to Rocheworld'', '' Marooned on Eden'', '' Ocean Under the Ice'', and '' Rescued from Paradise''. Plot A small group of civilian and military personnel carries out humanity's first crewed mission to another s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Return To Rocheworld
''Return to Rocheworld'' is a 1993 science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward and Julie Forward Fuller. It is the sequel to Forward's ''Rocheworld'' (also known as ''The Flight of the Dragonfly''), a novel about the first crewed interstellar mission to a unique double planet orbiting Barnard's Star. It features a return journey to that planet by the crew of the Solar sail, lightsail powered Starship Prometheus. Several new characters are introduced, including Reiki LeRoux, who makes only a brief appearance in this novel but is the main protagonist in a sequel novel, ''Marooned on Eden''. The Flouwen are also featured more extensively, and Flouwen culture is explored. A new species, the Gummies, is also introduced, living on the Roche lobe of the strange double planet. The story picks up where the Rocheworld left off, but before the final chapter set years later. Major General Virginia "Jinjur" Jones leads a return journey to Rocheworld, where they set up a communication station ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Forward
Robert Lull Forward (August 15, 1932 – September 21, 2002) was an American physicist and science fiction writer. His literary work was noted for its scientific credibility and use of ideas developed from his career as an aerospace engineer. He also made important contributions to gravitational wave detection research. Biography Forward earned his doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1965, with a thesis entitled ''Detectors for Dynamic Gravitational Fields'', for the development of a bar antenna for the detection of gravitational radiation. Career and research He then went to work at the research labs of Hughes Aircraft, where he continued his research on gravity measurement and received 18 patents. He took early retirement in 1987, to focus on his fiction writing and consulting for such clients as NASA and the U.S. Air Force. In 1994, he co-founded the company Tethers Unlimited, Inc. with Robert P. Hoyt, where he served as Chief Scientist and Chairman until 2002. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marooned On Eden
''Marooned on Eden'' (1993), is a science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward, collaborating with his wife, Martha Dodson Forward. It is part of the Rocheworld series, about an expedition to explore planets found in orbit around Barnard's Star. It was written before '' Ocean Under the Ice'', but is after it in the continuity. This is the fourth book in the continuity. It is written from the perspective of crewmember Reiki LeRoux and revolves around the crew struggling to survive on the habitable moon Zuni after a crash landing maroons them there. The crew nevertheless do their best to continue the mission without technology, learning to communicate with the moon's inhabitants and eventually building a home and raising families. It is the only book in the series written from a first person perspective. Characters in Marooned on Eden Crew The initial crew of the Barnard's Star Expedition consisted of twenty people when it left the solar system in 2026. One of the crew, Dr. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rescued From Paradise
''Rescued from Paradise'' is a science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward, collaborating with his daughter Julie Forward Fuller. It is part of the Rocheworld series, about an expedition to explore planets found in orbit around Barnard's Star Barnard's Star is a red dwarf about six light-years from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It is the fourth-nearest-known individual star to the Sun after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system, and the closest star in the .... This is the fifth and final book in the continuity. Some material from previous novels was rewritten and included as part of this story. In this novel, after settling down on the habitable moon Zuni (now known as Eden), the crew struggle to survive various disasters and to communicate with a mysterious Civilization under the ocean. Plot The first interstellar expedition successfully reached Barnard's Star and its double-planet Rocheworld and made contact with the flouwen, intelligent aqu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ocean Under The Ice
''Ocean Under the Ice'' is a science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward, collaborating with his wife, Martha Dodson Forward. It is part of the Rocheworld series, about an expedition to explore planets found in orbit around Barnard's Star. It was written after ''Marooned on Eden ''Marooned on Eden'' (1993), is a science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward, collaborating with his wife, Martha Dodson Forward. It is part of the Rocheworld series, about an expedition to explore planets found in orbit around Barnard's Star. ...'', but is before it in the continuity. This is the third book in the continuity. It follows the crew of humans and Flouwen as they explore Zulu, a moon of the gas planet Gargantua, and encounter 2 sentient species, the icerugs and the coelasharks. References External links * 1994 science fiction novels American science fiction novels Fiction set around Barnard's Star 1994 American novels Novels set on fictional planets Novels by Robert L. Forwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Sail
Solar sails (also known as light sails and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been proposed since the 1980s. The first spacecraft to make use of the technology was IKAROS, launched in 2010. A useful analogy to solar sailing may be a sailing boat; the light exerting a force on the mirrors is akin to a sail being blown by the wind. High-energy laser beams could be used as an alternative light source to exert much greater force than would be possible using sunlight, a concept known as beam sailing. Solar sail craft offer the possibility of low-cost operations combined with long operating lifetimes. Since they have few moving parts and use no propellant, they can potentially be used numerous times for delivery of payloads. Solar sails use a phenomenon that has a proven, measured effect on astrodynamics. Solar pressure affec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light Sail
Solar sails (also known as light sails and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been proposed since the 1980s. The first spacecraft to make use of the technology was IKAROS, launched in 2010. A useful analogy to solar sailing may be a sailing boat; the light exerting a force on the mirrors is akin to a sail being blown by the wind. High-energy laser beams could be used as an alternative light source to exert much greater force than would be possible using sunlight, a concept known as beam sailing. Solar sail craft offer the possibility of low-cost operations combined with long operating lifetimes. Since they have few moving parts and use no propellant, they can potentially be used numerous times for delivery of payloads. Solar sails use a phenomenon that has a proven, measured effect on astrodynamics. Solar pressure affec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bush Robot
A bush robot is a hypothetical machine whose body branches in a fractal way into trillions of nanoscale fingers, to achieve very high dexterity and reconfigurability. The concept was described by Hans Moravec in a final report for NASA in 1999, who projected that development of the necessary technology will take half a century. Bush robots are also referenced as very recent technology in the Transhuman Space and Eclipse Phase roleplaying games. They are also featured in some novels, such as '' Rocheworld'' by physicist Robert L. Forward, '' Iron Sunrise'' and ''Singularity Sky'' by Charles Stross, ''Matter'' by Iain M. Banks, '' The Turing Option'' by Harry Harrison and artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky, ''The Return of Bruce Wayne'' #6 by Grant Morrison and Lee Garbett, ''The Big Chill'' by Alan Moore and Carlos D'Anda (as the last form of life in the universe) and '' The Adventures of Lando Calrissian'' by L. Neil Smith. Bush robots also play an important role ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on or under the surface of the water, such as other vessels. "Sonar" can refer to one of two types of technology: ''passive'' sonar means listening for the sound made by vessels; ''active'' sonar means emitting pulses of sounds and listening for echoes. Sonar may be used as a means of acoustic location and of measurement of the echo characteristics of "targets" in the water. Acoustic location in air was used before the introduction of radar. Sonar may also be used for robot navigation, and SODAR (an upward-looking in-air sonar) is used for atmospheric investigations. The term ''sonar'' is also used for the equipment used to generate and receive the sound. The acoustic frequencies used in sonar systems vary from very low (infrasonic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech recognition, computer vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of inputs. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' of Oxford University Press defines artificial intelligence as: the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. AI applications include advanced web search engines (e.g., Google), recommendation systems (used by YouTube, Amazon and Netflix), understanding human speech (such as Siri and Alexa), self-driving cars (e.g., Tesla), automated decision-making and competing at the highest level in strategic game systems (such as chess and Go). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics
Modular self-reconfiguring robotic systems or self-reconfigurable modular robots are autonomous kinematic machines with variable morphology. Beyond conventional actuation, sensing and control typically found in fixed-morphology robots, self-reconfiguring robots are also able to deliberately change their own shape by rearranging the connectivity of their parts, in order to adapt to new circumstances, perform new tasks, or recover from damage. For example, a robot made of such components could assume a worm-like shape to move through a narrow pipe, reassemble into something with spider-like legs to cross uneven terrain, then form a third arbitrary object (like a ball or wheel that can spin itself) to move quickly over a fairly flat terrain; it can also be used for making "fixed" objects, such as walls, shelters, or buildings. In some cases this involves each module having 2 or more connectors for connecting several together. They can contain electronics, sensors, computer processors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
