[net.space] Low-cost launching

MINSKY@MIT-OZ@sri-unix (10/30/82)

There appears to be a way to launch heavy loads that is remarkably
cheap.  In this scheme (suggested by certain scientists working in a
certain laboratory near the Livermore Valley in California) you drill
a vertical cannon into the earth.  The propellent is a small H-bomb,
and the projectile is a densely packed space-colony kit.  Kinetic
energy obtained this way may be even much cheaper than railguns or any
other conventional power source.

Of course, you have to use some lower-G system to launch people to the
rendevous, until we find how to freeze or otherwise suitably pack
them.

Of course, this Jules Verne-like fusion-launch scheme is politically
impossible today.  The authors of the scheme claim it involves
negligible radwaste escape because all activity remains buried
kilometers below ground.  But they don't deny that further details are
classified.
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pcmcgeer (11/01/82)

	It looks like Project Orion is just to durable to die...24 years
after Freeman Dyson and Ted Taylor launched the Hot Rod off San Diego,
and 16 years after the USAF cancelled the project, bang-bang is alive and
well in Livermore...
					Rick.