Title text:
It does come at the cost of some launchpad expansions and increased fuel requirements, but that all comes out of the facility’s budget.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3291/
I still say we should mount rockets into a rollercoaster rail🎢 that way stage one can be spent on the ground doing a horizontal launch and then the rail would have to change the angle to be more horizontal
This was actually tested in 2001 and found to be effective method to launch a crew into space
Sweet now I have a working example to show. Also I remember seeing jimmy neutron movie in theaters
i remember the 2000s being a lot less colorful. and pointier.
From the “Futurama solves global warming” school of thought.
I thought of Futurama too, but instead how the Ships engines move the Universe around IT
I thought that was a silly joke but that’s actually more or less how an alcubierre drive would work.
Is it though?
Giant chemical engines to push a planet away is like bending space around a spacecraft?
It came to me in a dream, and then I forgot it in another dream.
That’s a complete load!
no, it’s only a third of the load. i left the other two thirds with a friendly laotian couple.
Nothing’s a complete load! Not if you can imagine it; that’s what being a scientist is all about!
Don’t dream it, be it.
I was thinking of the robots all firing their exhaust upward to push earth away from the sun.
This reminds me there was a project about 10-15(?) years ago where they were trying to rig the F15 with an attachment to launch satellites in quick need situations. The F15A shot down a satellite in 1985, so it makes sense it could put one up there as well. Think they ended up terminating the program because it became cheaper to launch them in mass.
Aka they probably just took it out of the public eye
no they cancelled it because thats impossible lol. you can shoot a satellite with a suborbital object but thats a loooong way from the projectile being orbital. shooting a satellite that way is more analogous to laying down a spike strip for a car. almost all the velocity of the impact is coming from the satellite not the projectile.
theres a reason even the smallest orbital rockets are the size of a building, its all the propellant required to get there. theres just no way to get that into an F15, to say nothing of the limitations of an airbreathing engine. the skylon was an attempt at a single stage to orbit vehicle using an air breathing engine and it was so complicated and impractical they never even got past the engine precooler design.
Everything you just said was confidently false.
no they cancelled it because thats impossible lol. you can shoot a satellite with a suborbital object but thats a loooong way from the projectile being orbital.
Nah, it’s not that long a way. You just need to adjust your goals, add an extra stage, accept a much smaller payload.
If you can get a payload to space, you could put a payload 1/4 its mass into orbit with an additional stage.
I mean, the anti-sat F-15 test was pretty wild. But is arguably less wild than other airlaunch systems like the Pegasus or spaceship one. Saying that airlaunch is impossible is silly, because it’s happening.
These systems get cancelled because they’re expensive and complicated and reusable rockets are cheaper and easier.
They are saying a missile that went faster than, and tracked a target at orbital speed and velocity, can’t be reached… Obviously it can, or they’d miss everytime. Yet they shot it down using a rocket deploying a payload 41 years ago. Same shit, different payload.
This kills the planet. ☹️
The planet is fine. The people are fucked.
If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today.
You laugh, but China made a big-budget action movie about this very concept.
Incredibly silly movie, but a fun watch!
True! Based on a Liu Cixin story. Never read it but loved his Three Body Problem series.
The Wandering Earth.
It was good
The end with lots of fire coming out should point towards the ground.
If it points towards space, that’s a big problem, and we will not go to space this day :/
Sounds like a Scott Manley quote.
Haha that’s awesome. It’s also xkcd
Just do it in the winter, otherwise it might get too hot…
Wrong approach, if they are going to the moon they need to attach engines to the moon and bring it closer
not the moon, but maybe smaller asteroids. nothing large enough to affect tides.
Ah good thinking
STOP GIVING ELON IDEAS
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Eh, Niven did it first.
