Can't remember if this was a story here or hard copy. Solar system gets a short warning before entering a dust cloud. Some underground bunkers were built here and on the moon. Main escape was a hastily built fleet of ships with plants and livestock. Among other emergency fixes was using mats of bamboo to halt dust erosion of hulls. When they return to earth, moon colony wants to fight due to damaging static discharge caused by fleet leaving.
If Wikipedia is correct, not enough elements.
The Caidin story has no Wikipedia page but looks a lot more likely.
Oh, my memory has mostly failed - parity errors with no ECC. I'm forced to check things out Online.
The Hoyle one interested me enough to check because I think I read something of his once, never heard of Caidin before this thread.
Exit Earth by Martin Caidin (1987 baen)
And anybody of my generation would recognize his most famous work, if not his name.
Marin Caidin wrote the novel "Cyborg", which was the basis for "The Six Million Dollar Man".
Thanks All. It must have been a used book I got on my last trip before all our local used book stores closed down in2018.
Wow, a Caidin novel I hadn't heard about or read! I was a big Caidin - got started with Marooned, The God Machine, all four Cyborg novels (much better than the wimpy Steve Austin on TV), and his military aviation historicals. 1987 - was stationed in Italy then, Baen was still a new publisher, and the overseas Stars & Stripes often had problems getting fiction novels for their shelves. I was really glad to transfer back to US and the multitude of bookstores ...
Wow, a Caidin novel I hadn't heard about or read! I was a big Caidin - got started with Marooned, The God Machine, all four Cyborg novels (much better than the wimpy Steve Austin on TV), and his military aviation historicals
Cyborg was very different than the TV show. He was strong and fast, but not like in the series. And the eye was replaced by a camera, so he could record things but not "see" with it. And he also had a head injury so a titanium plate was put in his head (which was also bulletproof).
Plus it read more like male military fiction of the era. Steve would (and did) kill without hesitation, even if it was just somebody who had seen him and might say who he was.
Very much a classic early 1970's Cold War spy series, but with a sci-fi twist. When they adapted it for TV, they made the bionics more powerful, and showed him as a slightly burned out vet who did not want to kill ever again.
When they adapted it for TV, they made the bionics more powerful, and showed him as a slightly burned out vet who did not want to kill ever again.
They also movd certain activities into the realm of physically impossible. In the TV series they often had Steve use his bionic arm to pull on things like tearing doors off vaults. Now, I can't speak for how strong the arm would be, but he always used his biological arm for bracing and then exerted so much force on whatever he was using the bionic arm on that his biological arm would have been crushed well before he finished the job.
Yep, Hollywood physics.
And not just tearing doors off vaults.
Punching things too.
Lets say you have one infinitely strong arm.
You encounter a locked door.
There's no latch or any kind of handle to pull on, so you decide to punch through the door.
The door is strong, such that the force required to break the door is greater than your body mass.
So what happens when you punch the door with your infinitely strong arm?
Using Hollywood physics: The door is torn off it's hinges and out of it's frame and goes flying.
Using real physics: The door is undamaged and you get thrown backwards by the force of your punch.
Bollywood physics: The door breaks into song.
At least it didn't start dancing. :)
Sorry, could not resist that one.
No reason to be sorry. Why would you want to resist? Resistance is futile. :)
Only if less than one ohm.
Watt..?? That's a revolting, if current, belief.
We expect more capacitance from you...
Hare Krishna's tend to travel in herds, like most grass eating species. So there would always be more than one Om.
They also moved certain activities into the realm of physically impossible.
The BOOKS had things move to the physically impossible. I will not say anything against the scifi of bionics. But some of the other thing he had the character do was impossible. The same with his other books. I used to like his stories, now I can't stand them.
which books? The TV tie-ins by other hacks or Caidin's scifi written to be a generation or two ahead of current tech at the time of creation. Yes, some he missed on, but some he came pretty close ...
I haven't read him in years so I have lost most of my peeves, but two from Cyborg and Operation Nuke. His legs were mostly replaced from the knee down(I remember him practically orgasming over the femur and how they were lucky it was still there and alive) but he could run forever - running is mostly the quads and hamstrings. Even worse (in my opinion) he had a pure oxygen tank in his leg an used it 30+ feet underwater. Pure oxygen at that depth is deadly, any diver can tell you that. It almost killed Cousteau at less than 16 feet.
Man Fac had a motion restricted man in a human looking exosuit. He could not open his hand all the way due to injury, but by putting of the manfac glove his moving his hand open half way opened the hand all the way. all I could see was the torn muscles, tendons, and ligaments as the scar tissue was hyper-extended.I wont go into how he was described (in the suit) as large but normal looking. His proportions would have been WAY off - think six foot tall dwarf.
There were other books by him that were the same VERY basic flaws
I remember loving his books, I can't read them now.
Pure oxygen at that depth is deadly, any diver can tell you that.
I was still in HS when I read Cyborg, etc. I didn't know that, but I'm not a diver. I swam and snorkeled but never dove, because I lived/worked in aviation all my life. I was aware of the nitrogen/bends issues from reading, but not that. During initial flt training at Mother P, NAMI warned us about diving v flying. Didn't mean we couldn't, but we would be grounded for awhile. Not good when trying to earn your wings. Or by later CO's or bosses.
Caidin was a noted pilot from late or just post WWII era, I believe military trained. Rated up to multi-engine. Known to have flown B-17's. Owned and restored aircraft most of his life. Thus, probably also never dove, and would not have thought going on pure O2 as a problem because it was a common practice in higher altitude unpressurized aircraft. Have to think he didn't know that or he would have written a suitable air mix in his novels.
By Finagle, someone that shares one of my pet peeves!!!!
In one of Cussler's books he refered to divers using o2 bottles and he was supposed to be a diver.
I couldn't be bothered with his books after that.
As a matter of interest do you realise that astronauts have to decompress before space walks
What did scare me was that during a diving medical the doctor asked me how long an o2 bottle lasted me!!
From what I'd heard said by some divers in the past I was under the impression that there was a diving system that used smaller bottles of O2 with a rebreather outfit.
I have used the latest rebreather systems, in fact the same that the astronauts train on.
A closed system rebreather scrubs the exhaled co2 using
soda lime ( there are variations of scrubber chemical mixes)
Assuming you are breathing a standard air mix (21%o2) then the exhaled air still contains about 15% o2
This varies with age, exertion, fitness etc.
A computer monitors co2 and o2 and releases a bit of o2 from a bottle to top up to normal.
The deeper you go the less o2 in the mix is needed and the N2 is normally replaced with an inert gas for which there will also be a small cylinder. Helium was exclusively used in the early days.
The amount of o2 in the mix depends on the depth i.e the partial pressure calculation.
I am qualified to teach mixed gas diving .
So at no time is the diver breathing pure o2 and the o2 is only used to maintain the balance of the breathing mixture.
So at no time is the diver breathing pure o2 and the o2 is only used to maintain the balance of the breathing mixture.
That's what I gathered from the use of a rebreather. I guessed the O2 bottle only added a little oxygen to what had been exhaled.
However, I was commenting on the discussion that said no divers used O2 bottle at all and I'd heard there was a diving system that used an O2 bottle.
Thanks for the clarification and the details as it's always good to learn the fine points of things like this.
breathing a standard air mix (21%o2) then the exhaled air still contains about 15% o2
This varies with age, exertion, fitness etc.
A computer monitors co2 and o2 and releases a bit of o2 from a bottle to top up to normal.
The deeper you go the less o2 in the mix is needed and the N2 is normally replaced with an inert gas for which there will also be a small cylinder. Helium was exclusively used in the early days.
The amount of o2 in the mix depends on the depth i.e the partial pressure calculation.
I am qualified to teach mixed gas diving .
So at no time is the diver breathing pure o2 and the o2 is only used to maintain the balance of the breathing mixture.
Also used as a decompression mix at very shallow depth
Helium was exclusively used in the early days.
This is known by anybody that saw "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau". He was a pioneer in this as most other diving specialties. And it was funny as a kid listening to them sound like The Chipmunks during a dive.
I have long wished that PBS or some other network would rebroadcast those old 1970's Cousteau and National Geographic specials. Both entertaining and educational.
Even worse (in my opinion) he had a pure oxygen tank in his leg an used it 30+ feet underwater. Pure oxygen at that depth is deadly, any diver can tell you that. It almost killed Cousteau at less than 16 feet.
To be fair, most non-divers can not tell the difference between "air" and "oxygen".
However, breathing pure O2 under pressure is not instantly fatal. In fact, hyperbaric therapy is a real thing and works by putting the patient on pure oxygen at 1.5-3 atmospheres (15-30 meters). At those pressures, so long as they are at the pressure for under 2 hours they will be fine.
However, if you are going deeper (120 feet+), then it quickly becomes deadly. But it is like Decompression Sickness, it is not instant and requires a great many exposures multiple times to generally be fatal. Or a single massive incident.
I have that book. Just skimming over it, it's not an exact match to the description but it's too close to be anything else imo.
