the strange effort of building a

I have been rereading Isaac Asimov's most popular science fiction books lately, not in the order they were written, but rather, in the order the stories are set. I'm on the last book now, 'Foundation and Earth'.

Up until this reading, I hadn't ever read the Empire books:
The Stars, Like Dust
The Currents of Space
The Pebble in the Sky

These three stories didn't really connect with each other, or with the preceding Robot series books, however, in one or more of the foundation books that came after, there was some mention of the Synapsifier, Bel Arvadan, and the Florinian situation.

What was odd was how 'The Stars, Like Dust' ended by showing that an important lost document that was finally unearthed happened to be the US Constitution. This seemed really odd to me, it was totally disconnected from the series and from the story too. Throughout the story there was reference to a document that could pose a serious threat; finding out what it was in the end was a disappointment.

In advance of reading 'Caves of Steel' I read 'I, Robot' so that I would have the explanation as to how hyperspace travel was invented. On Earth, robots and other computers were getting more and more advanced, to the point that there was such a thing as a 'robot psychologist' the most respected one being Susan Calvin. Eventually a competitor to US Robotics and Mechanical Men had had their main Brain computer, the highest intelligent one they had, try to solve the problem of hyperspace, but it crashed and effectively destroyed their computer.

So that competitor gave to US Robotics all of the documents they fed into their computer with the hopes that US Robotics would have their own 'Brain' computer crash. Before feeding the documents, however, Susan Calvin spoke with the brain and prepared it for the situation. The issue is that it wasn't known what happens to a human being during the travel through hyperspace, it was thought they might cease to exist but then re-exist once they exit hyperspace. This broke the first law of robotics and so it crashed that first company's computer. Susan convinced the USR brain computer that no people would be involved, and that is how hyperspace was invented - it was a computer that did it.

I wonder if in the real world it will end up being a computer that solves the interstellar travel problem in a way not too different from how Asimov portrays it in his story.

Hyperspace makes it possible to cross hundreds of parsecs in an instant; this makes intergalactic travel possible. Being limited by light speed it takes eons to get anywhere.

Golan Trevize's ship, the Far Star, runs by gravitics, which really isn't explained too much. We learn that it takes the force of gravity from space and uses that to make the ship move; that the whole drive is built within the hull of the ship, that because of using the gravity in space it has an almost infinite supply of fuel and needs not carry any onboard. Also, that the passengers inside the ship have no sense of motion, so when accelerating, decelerating, landing or taking off from a planet, they have no g-forces whatsoever. They would only hear the wind blowing along the ship's surface.

It is the most highly advanced ship that the Foundation has produced; it is really great that the Foundation kept moving technology forward, rather than the stagnating situation with the Galactic Empire which Hari Seldon (with the help of Eto Demerzel) noted had been decaying and was destined to fall.