3 ms·

There's got to be better way than burning a shittonne of fuel. Anyone else know?

• GolfPopper 5mo ago
  Nukes.[1] Lasers. [2] (Doesn't work, yet.) Balloons.[3] (Floating megastructures in the upper atmosphere is hard.) Giant cannon. [4] (Downside - huge g-forces on payload.) Extra fun with angular momentum.[5] (Even higher g-forces.) Exotic materials[6], with novel failure modes.[7] Humanity has not been idle when it comes to imagining alternate ways to get to orbit. But so far, the only one that works in practice is rockets. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propu... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP_Aerospace#Airship_to_Orbit_project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP_Aerospace#Airship_to_Orbit_... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinLaunch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinLaunch 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator 7. https://www.gassend.net/publications/FateOfABrokenSpaceElevator.pdf https://www.gassend.net/publications/FateOfABrokenSpaceEleva...
  • perilunar 5mo ago
    Big magnets. [8] 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver