In Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History:
a trepidation vortex, which is a moving volume of warped space, either destroys a spaceship or throws it hundreds of light-years off course ("Gypsy"; "Virgin Planet"; The Peregrine);
the atomic converters in a lifeboat go out of control and consume the boat ("Star Ship");
the containing fields of a nuclear conversion engine weaken long enough for the engine to devour itself ("Teucan").
On a closer reading, those last two sound the same. In "Star Ship," it is described as a one-in-a-billion chance. In "Teucan," this rare event is said to be inherent in the Uncertainty Principle. In that case, should there not be better safety precautions? Weber survives the explosion of his ship only because he had been about to land on an Earthlike planet and is able to evacuate in a spacesuit with impellers that enable him to descend slowly enough to land safely.
Spaceship mishaps are a big part of this future history series.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And that uncertainty factor guarantees there will be real mishaps and accidents off Earth once mankind finally gets out into space.
But I do think "trepidation vortices" a bit strained, something seen more often in Anderson's earlier works. He avoided such things in his later stories.
Ad astra! Sean
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