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From: minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: I want to go to orbit...
Message-ID: <5550@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 25 Mar 91 22:57:29 GMT
References: <1991Mar25.174621.3905@cs.mcgill.ca> <1991Mar25.183132.15691@zoo.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA
Lines: 21

In article <1991Mar25.183132.15691@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1991Mar25.174621.3905@cs.mcgill.ca> msdos@cs.mcgill.ca (Mark SOKOLOWSKI) writes:
>>	What are the steps in order to build a reliable space-shuttle like
>>spaceship in order to send myself to orbit for the summer holidays?
>
>First you need to locate a source of dilithium crystals.  You're not going
>to get off the ground without them.

How much energy does one get, in fact, by fusing lithium to carbon?
And what is the potential barrier to be crossed. The design of my
dilithium reactor is coming along just fine, but a few parameters need
to be filled in.  Oh, in case you didn't know, all you have to do is
form an exponentially tapered slug of the crystalline material, and
tap one end of it.  If you get the taper just right, and apply the
appropriate materials science to suitably increase the speed of sound in the
material, then the taper will impedance-match all the input kinetic
energy of the input impulse into fusion of the last few atoms at the
device's tip. The power is simply proportional to the frequency of the
input excitation.  The whole thing is about the size of one of those
overpriced Mont Blank fountain pens.  Looks like one, too.  Only
problem is that it isn't working yet.