Anders Sandberg wrote:
>Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net> writes:
>
>> Damien Broderick wrote:
>>
>> > No, not if you insist on blowing yourself into space on a swiftly
depleted
>> > column of hot gas. How about my favourite gadget, a Hyde Space Fountain?
>> > . . . Room-temp superconductors would surely help.
>>
>> Damien, why do we need room temp superconductors?
>
>Remember that space is also an excellent insulator, and that the
>launch system (where you really need the big coils) is on the ground.
>
Hyde Space Fountain? Sounds like a neat gadget, can I get one by mail order? Large-scale ideas for improving on rockets abound, just recently JoSH, sci.nanotech's moderator, suggested that the easiest way to proceed is to build a long accelerator on diamondoid towers sticking up out of the atmosphere: maybe you could call this the "Reading" Spaceroad, but it certainly wouldn't be the "Short Line" :^)
David Blenkinsop <blenl@sk.sympatico.ca>