The Brick Moon
The Brick Moon
and Other Stories
The Brick MoonCrusoe in New YorkBread on the WatersThe Lost Palace99 Linwood StreetIdealsThanksgiving at the PollsThe Survivor's Story
Book Excerpt
rcumference, light, very light within it--was made to save up power, from the time when it was produced to the time when it was wanted. Yes? Then, before we began even to build the moon, before we even began to make the brick, we would build two gigantic fly-wheels, the diameter of each should be "ever so great," the circumference heavy beyond all precedent, and thundering strong, so that no temptation might burst it. They should revolve, their edges nearly touching, in opposite directions, for years, if it were necessary, to accumulate power, driven by some waterfall now wasted to the world. One should be a little heavier than the other. When the Brick Moon was finished, and all was ready, IT should be gently rolled down a gigantic groove provided for it, till it lighted on the edge of both wheels at the same instant. Of course it would not rest there, not the ten-thousandth part of a second. It would be snapped upward, as a drop of water from a grindstone. Upward and upward; but the heavier wheel would have
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Delightfully written in humorously avuncular style. "BM" is the brainchild of public-spirited 1870s New-Englanders who want to launch a visible near-Earth satellite as an aid to navigation.
With enough willing suspension of disbelief, this is fairly plausible: build hollow satellite (brick to survive air-friction temperatures of launch), launch smoothly by means of flywheels...
Not bad at all.
With enough willing suspension of disbelief, this is fairly plausible: build hollow satellite (brick to survive air-friction temperatures of launch), launch smoothly by means of flywheels...
Not bad at all.
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