OK, so the shuttle is grounded, we need a new plan

[ct]

Anybody buy into this?

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast07sep_1.htm

http://www.spaceelevator.com/

"The simplest explanation of the space elevator concept is that it is a ribbon with one end attached to the Earth's surface and the other end in space substantially beyond geosynchronous orbit (100,000 km altitude). The competing forces of gravity at the lower end, and outward centripetal acceleration at the farther end, keep the ribbon under tension and stationary over a single position on Earth. This ribbon, once deployed, can be ascended by mechanical means to Earth orbit. By releasing at specific altitudes, low-, medium-, or high-Earth orbit can be achieved. If a climber proceeds to the far end of the ribbon and releases, it would have sufficient energy to escape from Earth's "gravity well" and travel to the Moon, Mars, Venus and the asteroids"

[MOhillbilly]

sounds like Witchcraft.

[Iowanian]

I think I'll start my new space program tonight...

I'm going to start with a prototype, and I'll be the first person to send another into orbit using only compressed air.

I think I'll build a huge Potato gun, and see if I can get a small kitty into the Stratosphere...and work my way up from there.

TwwTHOOOOOOOMP! ooooooooooooooh Aaahhhh


I keeeeeeed, I keeeeeeeeed.

[ct]

I think I'll start my new space program tonight...

I'm going to start with a prototype, and I'll be the first person to send another into orbit using only compressed air.

I think I'll build a huge Potato gun, and see if I can get a small kitty into the Stratosphere...and work my way up from there.

TwwTHOOOOOOOMP! ooooooooooooooh Aaahhhh


I keeeeeeed, I keeeeeeeeed.

Any plan that involves launching kittys up to not quite escape velocity, I'm in favor!

[KCTitus]

They need to build a transporter that will beam people in and out of space. I wonder if they got a chance to get some info on the technology of that before Scottie died.

[BigMeatballDave]

I can't see how this could even be possible...http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/images/spaceelevator/seg.jpg

[gblowfish]

I'm sure Halliburton will get a multi billion dollar contract to build a 1,000 foot high slingshot with a huuuuuuge rubber band attached...

[Brando]

I think the plan is to have Luv2Rite and Jenny give Goat Cheese an erection this weekend. Then he'll attempt to launch a Wookie into space from the end of his Johnson. Of course he will fail.

[JimNasium]

I'm sure Halliburton will get a multi billion dollar contract to build a 1,000 foot high slingshot with a huuuuuuge rubber band attached...
You should have seen Myth Busters last night.

[JimNasium]

You should have seen Myth Busters last night.
Link (http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/episode/episode.html)

Episode 35: Border Slingshot
Is it feasible to fly over the frontier? In this episode, Adam and Jamie take on the myth that illegal immigrants are firing themselves 200 yards across the border and into the United States with a slingshot so accurate, it can land the human projectiles safely on a carefully placed mattress. Border patrols are reportedly baffled — can the MythBusters' handbuilt human-sized slingshot solve the puzzle?
premiere: July 27, 2005

[whoman69]

Is it going to make clinking noises like a roller coaster all the way up?

[Rausch]

I was always curious about Project Orion. (http://www.vectorsite.net/tarokt2.html)

While the US and the Soviet Union were beginning work on NTR systems, a group of American researchers also considered a more direct and dramatic way to use nuclear power to propel a spaceship: detonate small atomic bombs behind it.

The ORION project, as it was named, seems to have originated with Dr. Theodore B. Taylor, well-known nuclear weapons designer. In 1957, he was working at General Atomic, a branch of the General Dynamics conglomerate, in San Diego, California, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first Earth satellite. General Atomic was promoting the peaceful uses of atomic power, and Taylor thought that America could catch up with the Soviets by building a really big spacecraft, a true "spaceship", powered by atomic bombs. The idea of a spaceship powered by atomic bombs had been around for a few years, but nobody had done any more than some conceptual paper studies of the idea.

Taylor did some paper studies of his own and came to the conclusion that the bombs would be small as such things went, with only a few kilotonnes of explosive yield. Even at that size, they would be about a million times more powerful than a chemical rocket. Taylor's initial studies led to the establishment of PROJECT ORION in mid-1958. Dr. Freeman J. Dyson, now famous both for his work in theoretical physics and for his brilliant speculative books, was then at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, New Jersey. He was contacted by Frederick de Hoffman, who had founded General Atomics, and told about the ORION concept. Dyson so intrigued that he took a leave of absence to go west and work on the ORION. Ultimately 19 people worked on the project, which was kept a deep black secret.