A 'Manhole Cover' Beyond the Solar System?

centauri-dreams.org

5 pointsprogramd5 comments

In defense of the manhole cover, it certainly lost some of its energy to the atmosphere and certainly got very hot, but... it did all that for a very short time, so, maybe, with some luck, it did clear the atmosphere and is on its merry way to some other planetary system.

In any case, since we had demonstrated high-g for centrifugal launches, we might want to consider explosive launches, nuclear or otherwise.

> we might want to consider explosive launches, nuclear or otherwise.

Project Orion: nuclear pulse rocket

also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXeUkrlxQ98

wait until Elon hears about this!

The bad idea of the Orion is that it requires a continuous train of nuclear explosions from the surface up to the ionosphere with a payload the weight of an aircraft carrier.

I was thinking much smaller payloads that could better withstand the acceleration - this is essentially a canon.

like Gerald Bull's Space Research

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Research_Corporation

canonically a cannon

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