To travel from Denver to Armstrong Base, Yvonne Canter takes the elevator down fifty floors to her conurb's garage, then sets her fuel-cell-operated car's pilot for the Base. The Traffic Control computers steer the car out of the city. Then the pilot transports her across 300 kilometers in under 90 minutes past farms and through the Base complex. We are surprised that this is not an air car.
From Armstrong and other bases, supplies are ferried to the Lunar and Martian stations and a Jovian expedition is being organized but there is also demoralization because of the extrasolar spaceship in Earth orbit. We gather that communication is difficult.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm not at all sure it would be SAFE to drive a ground car that fast! Esp. if we have to expect traffic sharing the road with Yvonne Canter.
Sean
Sean:
She's not doing the driving. It's the computer that's doing the driving, and presumably it's linked with the computers, or more likely an aspect of the single computer, controlling every other vehicle on that area's road network. If we accept the proposition that the bugs in driverless vehicles have been worked out by the time of the story, then nobody's taking unsafe chances, and this would be far safer than doing half that speed on a highway today.
Kaor, DAVID!
You are right. I should have thought of the points you listed. I assume THE BYWORLDER is set in either the mid or late 21st century.
Sean
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