Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon - io9 Comments

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

mechawatts — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:34:03 PDT

When I saw the pic of the French Space Mountain, I was immediately reminded of the Lunar Gate from Final Fantasy VIII. The two companies worked together once, and I wonder if there was some cross-pollination, though I don't reckon the chronology works out.
[video.google.com]

mechawatts

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

jbq — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:32:54 PDT

@92BuickLeSabre: FTW

jbq

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

SavannahJack — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:58:24 PDT

Heinlein explored this concept pretty well in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, with the giant magnetic accelerator on the moon shooting cargo (and projectiles) back to Earth. Other writers have also proposed large accelerators for lofting cargo and passengers, frequently from tracks carved into the equatorial Andes (to take max advantage of the Earth's rotational velocity).
Not a new idea, but still attractive: Earth Orbit (at least) for a few dollars in electricity.
I believe it is only the instability of that particular region and the potential military application (undetectable ballistic projectiles that can reach anywhere on the planet) that has stopped serious work on developing such a system.

SavannahJack

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

lazyeight — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:35:18 PDT

@ndgmtlcd:That's nine hundred feet, not six

lazyeight

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

Jeff-Minor — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:30:54 PDT

I started with Jules Verne, more or less. But I had been jaded by TV shows like Lost in Space and Trek. I read this book and was totally unimpressed with the technology. It is a classic, and probably worth reading for its historical value.

Jeff-Minor

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

HerrDoktorProfessor — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:20:20 PDT

@bjarmson

Bingo.
I teach physics and sf, and I've used this very example in class already. Simple freshman physics, really. The acceleration, a, needed to achieve a final velocity, v, starting from rest, if the acceleration is done during a distance, d, (the length of the gun) is given by a = v squared / (2d). Okay, here's the back-of-the-envelope calculation (we physicists live for this crap). Let
v = 11000 m/s (Terran escape velocity)
d = 17700m (twice the height of Everest)
Result: a= 3400m/s/s or 350 gees for 3.2 seconds. I hope your corpse loves the Moon. Of course, I've taken liberties. Escape velocity at an elevation of two Everests is not 11km/s, but then I've ignored friction, as is customary in the physics community.

BTW, if you've never watched Melies' film homage to Verne's story, it is golden. Possibly the first scifi story, possibly the first truly entertaining story, the most cutting edge special FX of its day.

@bjarmson:

HerrDoktorProfessor

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

ndgmtlcd — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:46:08 PDT

"a hole 600 fet deep and 60 feet wide"

You call that big?

The VAB is 525 feet tall, 716 feet (long and 518 feet wide.

It's so big that there are micro-atmosphere effects inside.

[en.wikipedia.org]

ndgmtlcd

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

Epaminondas — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:14:40 PDT

@strider_mt2k: Codename Hardhat HARDHAT!!

Ahhhh, good times...

Epaminondas

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

bjarmson — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:25:18 PDT

Not to be a spoilsport, but wouldn't the G forces necessary for one very big explosion to put a fairly heavy shell into orbit, tend to smash any organic life-form into liquid glop at the bottom of the cannon shell, er space capsule.

bjarmson

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

strider_mt2k — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:23:40 PDT

SHOOT THE MOON!

strider_mt2k

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

92BuickLeSabre — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:51:43 PDT

@causeiambetta: No no! Verne was "merely" the Leonardo of writing and thinking about Awesome.

Tournachon was the Leonardo of Awesome.

(My new mission: Defending Tournachon's legacy!)

92BuickLeSabre

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

causeiambetta — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:27:38 PDT

very interesting stuff. Jules Verne truelly is the da Vinci of Awesome

causeiambetta

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

92BuickLeSabre — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:06:01 PDT

@Kevin Kelly: ..and, apparently, "the author of the first weekly comic strip." Is there any modern-day/future equivalent for this guy? I think not!

He's the Leonardo da Vinci of Awesome.

92BuickLeSabre

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

Dunny0 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:56:18 PDT

Operation Plumbbob sounds pretty neat. Manhole in space!

I wonder which one of the many craters belongs to that particular experiment...

I'm thinking a trip to the NTS is in order.

Dunny0

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

Kevin Kelly — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:52:16 PDT

@92BuickLeSabre: Plus he took "erotic photos". Woot!

Kevin Kelly

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

92BuickLeSabre — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:50:00 PDT

Aside from the "He's dead. Plus, I'd never even heard of him" part, how cool to be Gaspard-Félix Tournachon?

He's the prototype for the SF adventurer; all others are merely evolutionary takes on him. The first Han Solo, the first Indiana Jones, the first ...some character not played by Harrison Ford.

(Okay, okay, sure, there is plenty of source material for such characters going back to the ancients, I still think it's awesome.)

92BuickLeSabre

Jules Verne Wants You To Shoot The Moon

Plague — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:36:58 PDT

Fun stuff.

Plague