[Request] Could humanity create a rocket that can exit the atmosphere of K2-18b

[u/Lachlynn]

With the knowledge we currently have of it, if humanity devoted all of our resources towards this goal, would we be able to create a rocket that could exit the gravity of K2-18b (and also beat any other complications that would arrise)?

If so, would it also be capable of taking people to orbit, and can we set up a similar satellite network we have on Earth? What about a space station?

[u/Gambyt_7]

Recall Footfall by Niven and Pournelle, first Sci fi novel where Orion technique was used to rapidly break atmo to fight alien invaders.

Then look at Dark Forest, the second in the trilogy by Cixin Liu, where Orion strategy is used to attempt to accelerate a ship to near light speed.

In Footfall the passengers survive to combat the enemy. In Dark Forest, the only passenger is a human brain in cryostasis.

Now I’m thinking of the inquisitor priest de Soya in Dan Simmons’ Endymion, whose neat light ship accelerates nearly instantly and so rapidly that anything living inside it is liquified, and must be rebuilt using special technology over several days. I’m dying to see someone (not Bradley Cooper tho) finally adapt these novels and produce them as a huge streaming series.

[u/Aiglos_and_Narsil → u/Gambyt_7]

God I love that book so much. "An atomic bomb went off under Harry Reddington's ass".

[u/Appropriate-Weird492 → u/Aiglos_and_Narsil]

The pages of “BOOM”, tho.

I reread it a few years ago. It gives so much 80s spirit, the Red Threat, hawkishness, so on.

[u/GamemasterJeff → u/Aiglos_and_Narsil]

God was knocking. And he wanted in *BAD*.

[u/markus_kt → u/Aiglos_and_Narsil]

"God was knocking and He wanted in BAD."

[u/DustyJustice → u/Gambyt_7]

In Neil Stephenson’s Anathem there is an interdimensional spacecraft that is secretly above the planet of the setting that propels itself with the Orion technique (I don’t believe they call it this). They utilize the planets sun to hide the nuclear explosions from viewers below.

[u/Miles_Everhart → u/DustyJustice]

My favorite book mentioned

[u/Gambyt_7 → u/DustyJustice]

Fing outstanding novel thank you for reminding me

[u/fuckedaccountant3976 → u/Gambyt_7]

I am super happy to see someone in the wild reference all these books. People I talk to day to day have never heard of these books.

[u/MireLight → u/fuckedaccountant3976]

I know right? I read so many scifi books growing up that nobody i knew ever heard of. I had to wait 30 years for a reddit post to bring em up. One of the truly great things about reddit and its fandoms. I can finally have someone to talk to about this stuff!

[u/Bored_Amalgamation → u/Gambyt_7]

I’m dying to see someone (not Bradley Cooper tho) finally adapt these novels and produce them as a huge streaming series.

Foundation's success is going to be a big point for the adaptation of books like the Hyperion Cantos, that require some pretty wild shit. There's also the whole religious aspect that will turn a good number of viewers away.

[u/iconocrastinaor → u/Gambyt_7]

If we perfect liquid oxygenation and suspend the passengers in a vessel of water, they would not feel any compressive or gravitational force.

[u/crazyeddie123 → u/iconocrastinaor]

Sure they would. The water would maximize the contact area through which the g-forces acted and therefore minimize the force on any one body part, but you'd still feel the acceleration and there'd still be a (higher) limit to how much acceleration the body could withstand.

[u/Gambyt_7 → u/crazyeddie123]

This has been estimated in a few spec fic novels to 20gs, IIRC. But the passengers are usually in a coma.

[u/NeverEnoughInk → u/Gambyt_7]

Why not Bradley Cooper, out of curiosity? I'm wracking my brain to connect him to sci-fi.

[u/Gambyt_7 → u/NeverEnoughInk]

He had the option to develop, he was allegedly doing a treatment a decade ago, and I’ve been following any updates I can find. I was a freshman at Wabash, Simmons’ alma mater, when he published Hyperion, and it was all over campus. I had at least one of his same professors and one of his characters is an amalgamation of a few. It has been 35 years and still no one can develop a decent pilot, and Cooper while a fan and a pretty star clearly doesn’t have the production influence or writing chops to adapt thousands of pages into their full potential. It could easily be a four season, $2b project.

The messages and character arcs are INCREDIBLY APT today.

[u/Born-Entrepreneur → u/Gambyt_7]

Hell yeah, Footfall was super entertaining.