I keep thinking Buckminster Fullerene. And orbital elevator.

Nods. Then thank you twice. :-)

/s is sarcasm? Are there other letters in use?

I can't actually tell if that's sarcasm/snark/other...or you meant it? If I'm smart, how come I don't know what /s means?

(What does/s mean? Gramps is asking for help)

Thank you. I'm not really sensitive to up/down voting yet. Lol and I'm weird enough I might never get there:-)

Do you mean as a payload or as a warshot? We are really close to fusion powered induction IMHO, but as a transport system or at least a bootstrapper....is my head following?

I am sorry that treating your question seriously ended up in a fun-suck for you. I was trying to treat your question with respect and give you as close to a truthful answer as I am able. I apologize.

EDIT: You probably, can use them as space guns, actually. The big boom pushes something ballistic. Maybe a rock, or a BFSpear, or another bomb. Their are practical and logistical questions, but sure, you can use an atomic boom as space weapon. Just gotta find the right something that survives the propulsive blast.

Edit: and I can offer a book of fiction that uses an onboard exploding nuke as a weapon of attack. Peace offering. :-)

If you really want to fix the blane on SALT Ii, which I find acceptable, the dirty hands are Ronald Reagan's. Shrug. Yes, Dr. Dyson is on record as saying it's solvable. I deeply respect Dr. Dyson. I don't respect him enough to accept the assertion as the deed.

Bad enough he gave away everything they wanted starwars (orbital target acquisition) and FOBS banned. He gave them High Frontier. Jackass.

EDIT: Reagan, not you. SALT II is the reason we haven't tried using launching lasers. For just 1 thing.

Edit edit: A launch laser is an Orion with the engine on the ground. It needs really excellent targeting. Thie ship leaks fuel vapor into a combustion chamber. The laser fires. Rinse and repeat. Quickly. :-) fuel/air explosion. Get high enough you also bleed in O2.

Who told you this? Are we discussing Nerva/Heavy Orion, as proposed by Dr. Pournelle and Dr. Kingsbury? Yes they discussed quite a few multistage designs, yes the SatV was the obvious choice of system. No. They never got comfortable enough with the Murphy factor to move forward. There was no acceptable design when the treaty showed up.

And this part too. Thank you, kind poster.

What you are missing is that it wasn't stopped by treaty. It was stopped by engineering saying we won't build it, its too much risk at our current state of art. TBH, even with as little fallout as we can design, it's really dangerous when its inside a gravity well. Mine the fissile material from asteroids, build it in Lunar orbit? Sure!

It's an artifact of a violent, manipulative culture that has decided that winning is its own excuse for the path you took. Toxic aggression

Yes. But countries don't have morals. They have interests.

Welp. Is inertia still in effect? Is this a sudden stop or slows to a stop? A sudden stop will destroy all sorts of stuff probably including orbital stuff. Some of the things on top of the planet will rearrange itself....

Yup. That's why it's also called the speed of information . When you look at the night sky, you are looking into a mosaic of past events that happened anywhere from 4 years ago to millions of years ago. Or at least looking at extrasolar stuff. Even sunlight here on earth is 8 minutes old. :-)

Possible. But umless needed, it might get cracked into O2 and propellant. You can always recombine, the energy is probably gonna be really cheap. I've always thought smelting on the earth crossing returning orbit would be profitable, but certainly not now at bootstrap time.

I'm not actually sure how to answer. Education usually imparts specifics. Physics and math certainly. Read "The Dancing wu-li Masters?" Or Neil Tyson?

Maybe ask this question in /NASA?

And for the moment, that's all that matters. I'm sure the failure mode will be studied to a fare thee well, but the mission advances. Go Lucy!

I'm guessing multiple exposure with interesting lenses, and then advanced composition tools?

Ever heard of anything called "High Frontier?"

Don't need a lot to keep it orbital. Keep it in the same orbit, junk should eventually show up in a crossing orbit. If you loft it correctly, just gonna need little gas jets (maybe peroxide). Eventually the the thing fills and the last fuel is used to park it at a Lagrange point send a refueler with more peroxide.

edit: Or hell, park the whole unit.

I keep yelling out "upload me!" On the off chance that someone who can is watching and bored.

On Reddit? Absolutely nada. IRL? If you guys wanna be pirates I'm sure I'll have more help than necessary.. But then again, y'all give the appearance of think piracy is like a Sid Meier game. Shrugs. Yep, I'd space that flavor human fast.

I've been on Reddit a lot less than a year lol. I've no idea what reddit uses for karma, or why someone gave me an award, etc. I'm here for interesting discussion. So far, lol, it gets amusing but ottoh, why the fuck would I waste reaction mass boosting someone upwell when I'm just going to have to shoot the wank for piracy someday? :-)

I was being straight up. Not being cool. Just noting that your big thought was piracy. Shrugs. Label it what you will. I think of it as our worst species issue, toxic aggression . Just reacting to words used.

SMH. If that's your first thought, let's play find the incel.