In orbit around the earth, a space station awaits the arrival of a cargo ship.
A huge web of metal spider silk is strung out against the starry blackness.
The cargo ship enters the web, which wraps itself around the ship,
tightens into a ball, and pulls the ship into a receiving port.
An eight-armed robotic figure swarms around the ball
as it is manipulated into the port and the cargo door is shut.
It has eight eyes.
The robot unzips the web in the cargo bay
freeing up the ship and allowing the passengers to disembark.
Then, the robot goes into a holding area,
hangs itself up on a series of metal hooks.
The back of the suit opens up and a man steps out.
He opens the head of the suit and extracts a cage.
In the cage there is a spider,
with wires attached to each of its eight eyes
and each of its eight limbs.
The man walks down a hallway to a room
where he puts the spider cage into a large glass enclosure
and sets the spider loose.
He lingers to watch the spider climb the wall.
The spider looks back at him.
Certainly different take on the famous Spider-Man comic books and movies. Takes a little getting used to. Seems like a rather primitive way of going about space business. But comic books are all about some kinds of nostalgia and wishful thinking that is very inefficient in scientific and engineering circles, but can be done in fictional settings without all of the restraints of reality.
Did you know that I've predicted that interstellar space travel cannot be done by hard surfaced metal spaceships? I'll bet that at least 90% of science-fiction stories about spaceships, including Star Wars and Star Trek, use metal spaceships. Now you are using metal spiderwebs? Did you know that silkworm fibers are stronger than steel?
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