Trade Your Trouble For A Bubble - Pleasure Ball Illustration and concept by James B Settles. Featured back cover story of Amazing Stories, February 1946.
‘Trade Your Trouble for a Bubble’ and decide to go sightseeing across the country in this giant rolling ball of transparent plastic, balanced by interior gyro stabilizers controlling a suspended core which ever remains erect as it travels around its giant “track-ring.”
This ring is magnetic, and powered by the atom, revolves along the roadway, with is a specially magnetized roadway. The same power that makes the ball move forward (or backward) acts for stopping the ball. There are no huge motors, no complicated apparatus, just the simplest of gadgets, and a complex and very interesting interior which is the last word in pleasure palaces. Games, terraces, ramps, restful lounging places, dance floors, swimming pools and just plain sightseeing would make this huge ball a pleasant place to while-away a day.