The Science of Avatar - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Stephen Baxter (PHOTO INSERT) #14

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^{Na’vi bow and arrows. Evidence of high intelligence among the natives of Pandora and a striking example of cultural convergence.}

^{Jake Sully’s Earth. Only glimpsed in the movie, future Earth is a world of high technology but of ecological collapse, social division and conflict.}

^{A concept design for the Valkyrie shuttle. An example of a craft capable of reaching orbit from the surface of a planet without the need for throwaway boosters: a key step in gaining access to space.}

^{The ISV Venture Star. One of mankind’s first starships. Note the forward shields for protection against erosion by interstellar matter, the engine stack at the rear, and the long spine to separate the habitable compartments from the engine stack and its damaging radiation leakage.}

^{The Hallelujah Mountains. Tremendous masses of rock suspended in the air by magnetic forces, with the aid of the superconducting unobtanium.}

^{A concept design for the Scorpion gunship. Human war-making technology exported to Pandora, proven in the field on Earth and adapted to Pandoran conditions.}

^{A banshee. An example of the fauna of Pandora: an invented alien creature that is part of a consistent ecology and extrapolated from parallels on Earth.}

^{Tsu’tey, a Na’vi warrior. The Na’vi: humanoid but taller than humans, and with technology roughly corresponding to our New Stone Age period.}

^{A concept design for an avatar. An artificial life form mixing human with Pandoran biological structures: able to host a human mind and survive the physical conditions of Pandora.}