That's great Steven, thanks.  I can't seem to get the web site to locate the
story myself (tried "Men" and "Man") but your excerpt really helps.  I
forgot about those shutters to open and close so the Corvite could be
controlled.  That explains the pictures I saw of different models.  So I
have some additions to do now.
--
text{ttf"arial","bob h",.1,0pigment{rgb 9}translate<-1,-.2,3>}

"Steven Vogel" <svo### [at] iconnnet> wrote in message
news:3c09741d@news.povray.org...
>
> "bob h" <omn### [at] charternet> wrote in message
> news:3c084b02@news.povray.org...
>
> > Can't decide if I should add the shock absorbers on the top and bottom.
> > Anyone know the book and whether it has them all over?  Would appreciate
> > knowing that if so, I can probably find a online reference to the book
> too.
>
> Nice job, Bob.  I really liked the rivets that you put around the plates
and
> the orange color of the sphere.  They made it look more "real" to me.  I
> liked the landing legs all around, but if I were inside, I would want it
to
> land on the bottom only.  Artistically, I liked your idea better than a
> platonic solid, which is what I envisioned when I read the story.
>
> I remember reading the story and they talked about shutters made of the
> Cavorite that could be opened and closed to control the motion of the ship
> by tacking between gravitational bodies.  I think the glass ball with
> rollerblind shutters of gravity proof material would look pretty cool as
> well.  I found the text for H. G. Wells "First Man in the Moon" on the
> Project Gutenberg web site:
>
> http://promo.net/pg/
>
> From that source chapter 3:
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> "It's like this," he said. "Last time I ran this stuff that cuts things
> off from gravitation into a flat tank with an overlap that held it down.
> And directly it had cooled and the manufacture was completed all that
> uproar happened, nothing above it weighed anything, the air went squirting
> up, the house squirted up, and if the stuff itself hadn't squirted up too,
> I don't Know what would have happened! But suppose the substance is loose,
> and quite free to go up? "
>
> "It will go up at once!"
>
> "Exactly. With no more disturbance than firing a big gun."
>
> "But what good will that do? "
>
> "I'm going up with it! "
>
> I put down my teacup and stared at him.
>
> "Imagine a sphere," he explained, "large enough to hold two people and
> their luggage. It will be made of steel lined with thick glass; it will
> contain a proper store of solidified air, concentrated food, water
> distilling apparatus, and so forth. And enamelled, as it were, on the
> outer steel - "
>
> "Cavorite? "
>
> "Yes."
>
> "But how will you get inside? "
>
> "There was a similar problem about a dumpling."
>
> "Yes, I know. But how?"
>
> "That's perfectly easy. An air-tight manhole is all that is needed. That,
> of course, will have to be a little complicated; there will have to be a
> valve, so that things may be thrown out, if necessary, without much loss
> of air."
>
> "Like Jules Verne's thing in A Trip to the Moon."
>
> But Cavor was not a reader of fiction.
>
> "I begin to see," I said slowly. "And you could get in and screw yourself
> up while the Cavorite was warm, and as soon as it cooled it would become
> impervious to gravitation, and off you would fly -"
>
> "At a tangent."
>
> "You would go off in a straight line - " I stopped abruptly. "What is to
> prevent the thing travelling in a straight line into space for ever?" I
> asked. "You're not safe to get anywhere, and if you do - how will you get
> back? "
>
> "I've just thought of that," said Cavor. "That's what I meant when I said
> the thing is finished. The inner glass sphere can be air-tight, and,
> except for the manhole, continuous, and the steel sphere can be made in
> sections, each section capable of rolling up after the fashion of a roller
> blind. These can easily be worked by springs, and released and checked by
> electricity conveyed by platinum wires fused through the glass.  All that
> is merely a question of detail. So you see, that except for the thickness
> of the blind rollers, the Cavorite exterior of the sphere will consist of
> windows or blinds, whichever you like to call them. Well, when all these
> windows or blinds are shut, no light, no heat, no gravitation, no radiant
> energy of any sort will get at the inside of the sphere, it will fly on
> through space in a straight line, as you say. But open a window, imagine
> one of the windows open. Then at once any heavy body that chances to be in
> that direction will attract us "
>
> I sat taking it in.
>
> "You see?" he said.
>
>

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