3 ms·
You don't have to lift the fuel. A huge proportion of the fuel in a rocket's first stage is used to lift the fuel in the first stage off the ground for the fir
by retrac 5y ago
You don't have to lift the fuel. A huge proportion of the fuel in a rocket's first stage is used to lift the fuel in the first stage off the ground for the first few hundred metres of flight. It's almost diabolically inefficient.
Using a really big cannon, not entirely unlike in the Jules Verne novel, has been investigated seriously. It has similar efficiency benefits. Some limits on what can survive the acceleration though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP
- FpUser 5y agoI knew this would come up in here. Gerard Bull was an amazing character. Unfortunately he was screwed by few governments and at the end he was assassinated (presumably by Mossad).