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Comment by tkgally | Hacker News Reader

When I think back on the science fiction I read and enjoyed as a child and teenager a half century ago, the wrong predictions that amuse me most are two central plot elements in Robert Heinlein’s 1953 “Starman Jones” [0]. Faster-than-light travel through interstellar space is now routine, but the “astrogators” who guide the starships must refer to coordinates that appear in a set of printed manuals. When a starship gets lost and those books are stolen, the ship is able to return to Earth only because our hero, who has an eidetic memory, is able to recall all of the coordinates from memory.

In 2019, of course, the information in all of those printed manuals could be put into a wristwatch with room to spare, while manned interstellar travel is nowhere in sight.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starman_Jones

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> must refer to coordinates that appear in a set of printed manuals

Why weren't they equipped with a twenty-inch deci-trig duplex slide rule, like Seaton, in the Skylark of Space [0]?

"All right—let's see. Radius of rotation here in Washington would be cosine latitude times equatorial radius, approximately—call it thirty-two hundred miles. Angular velocity, fifteen degrees an hour. I want secant fifteen less one times thirty-two hundred. Right? Secant equals one over cosine—um——m—one point oh three five. Then point oh three five times thirty-two hundred. Hundred and twelve miles first hour. Velocity constant with respect to sun, accelerated respecting point of departure. Ouch! You win, Mart—I'd step out! Well, how about this, then? I'll put on a suit and carry rations. Harness outside, with the same equipment I used in the test flights before we built Skylark One—plus the new stuff. Then throw on the zone, and see what happens. There can't be any jar in taking off, and with that outfit I can get back U.K. if I go clear to Jupiter!"

[0] http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/astrodeck.php

With a username like yours you probably memorized that passage!

For people intrigued by this comment, check out the Galactic Lensman series. Solid science fiction.

My username is indeed a reference to the Lensman series although I first used it on Flickr. The 'Kinetic' part is a reference to a company I used to work for, intended to be recognised by one of our customers who was also active on Flickr.

My enjoyment of the Lensman series has lasted longer than my enjoyment of Flickr! One of the other superb old tech images I have from the series is a spaceship pilot 'playing arpeggios' on the massive bank of the controls of his starship.

No need for a slide rule. The Asgard has a computer in the ship's control room, operated by Chief Computerman Kelly.

If I recall that story correctly, this manual wasn't simply the result of working out math, like an artillery firing manual; it was the result of empirical experimentation with no known pattern to it. The resulting trips certainly took them well across the universe and IIRC they weren't even entirely sure they were in the "same" universe because they were so far away they'd never correlated two known locations before.

I've forgotten the title, but I remember laughing at a book that insisted the controls of a hover car were so complex that only an android could drive it. The author couldn't escape the idea of a car needing a humanoid driver.

In fairness, authors sometimes mimic something people understand in the present to make things easier on the reader. It can take a lot of text to explain concepts to people with no familiarity.

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