porthole n.

It is of course of the utmost importance that no porthole or doors leading to the outside be ever opened as long as the flyer is in the outer space. The result would be that the air would rush from the flyer instantly, resulting in a perfect vacuum in the inside of the space flyer, which would of course kill every living being almost instantly.

‘Boys, I'm going to try a whiff of our new atmosphere’, said the professor, unlatching one of the small portholes. Before either of the others could interfere, he had swung the heavy glass slightly inward, and sniffed the Martian air speculatively.

It was a space-car, long, swift, gleaming in the pale light of the distant sun like a cartridge of stainless steel. On either side was a row of round portholes through which the occupants could look out into space.

The instant he looked through the porthole, a grimy greasy sickness hit him in the stomach. That was what space sickness was: fear. Fear of being in space, a horrible nauseating phobia.

One moment there were the moon and stars beyond the porthole; the next, abysmal darkness. Nothing… The rear porthole should have been filled with the immense bulk of Earth. And there was only blackness.

Looking out of the side window and down into the blue chasms is almost as bad as staring out of the porthole during a Jump.

I didn’t see the Ariekene Pharos that first time out, but thousands of hours later. To be precise I’ve never seen it, of course, nor could I; that would require light and reflection and other physics that are meaningless there. But I’ve seen representations, rendered by ships’ windows. The ’ware in those portholes depicts the immer and everything in it in terms useful to crew.