[spam][ot][rambling][crazy] Building a Spaceship Out Of Something Ridiculously Weak and Flimsy

[Karl]

I like to daydream around hard challenges.

I don't know how to build a spaceship.  But maybe it would be fun to try.

To make it harder, let's make it out of only something ridiculously hard to
do it with, like toilet paper, or leaves, or old newspapers.

I don't know what kinds of problems one runs into when building a
spaceship, but when I start planning it I think the first problem will be
getting something to go really, really far against gravity.

Another problem I hear about is burning up as you accelerate through the
atmosphere.

I imagine aiming what direction you go in is pretty hard too.

I'm thinking I'm probably okay with there being some guidance computers and
robotics on the craft, but that we would _mostly_ make it out of tissue
paper or whatnot.  Making computers out of tissue paper can be considered a
separate problem, for now.

One way to make tissue paper move is to burn it.  Could we use a
tissue-paper-fueled rocket to accelerate the craft?  Almost certainly not,
but doing the calculations for this could inform what thing to consider
next.

I have no idea how to make a rocket, or how rockets work, but I imagine
that when you burn something, it turns into gas, and the expansion of the
gas is much larger than the thing you burned, so if you direct this gas in
some direction or another, it might push something further. I dunno.  Like
getting up from a chair because of a fire you sat in.  Maybe?  I dunno.

Maybe I'll briefly websearch for "solid fuel rocket" and see what I get.

Oh, great, this is a very well-studied thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-propellant_rocket .

I'll read the "Basic Concepts" section.

Huh, they mix the fuel with oxidizer in advance.  Early rockets couldn't be
turned off, after being ignited, until they burned up.  Anyway mixing the
fuel with the oxidizer would make design _so_ much easier.  I wonder how
thrust is calculated.

I'll click around some.

I'm saving this as a draft.  The 'cocky' attitude I post with on this list
is an affect.  However, I'm noticing that posting this, it appears that I
might only need knowledge to accomplish things, which could scare people
wanting to control me. Maybe that's why it is so hard to do even the
smallest thing in my life.  Unsure.  Also unsure why I post.  So, draft.

---

this draft was written 3 days ago.  it's now 2021-12-01 and i'm sending
some drafts just for consistency I guess.  glancing through this, i'd kind
of rather not send it, maybe because it's kind of in a certain uncanny
valley of sanity.  (the uncanny valley is where something ineffable is
clearly wrong, but it looks pretty good by everything you can describe).
but here it is!
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/html
Size: 3140 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/attachments/20211201/7b96f1f5/attachment.txt>