"How Many G's?" Part 3

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{Clap for TinkerFuel}

...hold on, pause game. Recalculate. 21 billion kJ. That'll never be enough energy to make my dreams come true, at least that's what the TinkerFuel fairy in my head just told me. I also might have left a lid or two loose on one of my jury-rigged gas barrels. Well, if TinkerFuel and that baby dino from Dinosaurs have any validity to the conversation that's taking place between my lobes right now. Then I just remembered something. The Space Shuttle launch, is basically 95% fuel. So if we take the common report of 2 million kilograms of lift-off weight. Then take 95% of that. Then run it through the KE formula. We're basically back at 60 billion kJ again. Up 40, from my Lucky 21 estimate (see "How Many G's" Part 2).

The hardware is negligible. It's like riding a giant propane tank into space. And I thought I was being frugal with my Lego Dupulus. Does the algebraic approach actually help me see the bigger picture? When in doubt, take an average. If I add 60 and 20 together, then divide by two-- magically I get 40 kJ. 40 billion of course. It's magic, because beans are magic and we're growing a gasoline beanstalk down here to blow dodge, clean out of this joint. That's my slingshot to escape the Goliath. And because the real data is hard to get ahold of, we're gonna have to improvise to get to the amount we really need.

Okay, a lil more dinner napkin math. Real quick, check out these hacks. What's the ratio of 3.1 billion kJ to 40 billion kJ-- that's the amount for just the Orbiter compared to my new magic beanstalk number. 3.1 / 40, Orbiter / Total Estimated Kinetic Energy = 7.8%. So if I take my 2008 Ford E350 at 4100 kg gross weight (fully loaded) then put it into orbit with the basic KE formula, (1/2) x (4100 kg) x (7800 m/s)^2 = ~125 million kJ-- hold on. Here's the final piece of the pie kids, or adulting kids, divide by 7.8%, and abra-abra-cadabra. We get the ratio of payload to fuel expressed in units of KE = 1.6 billion kJ. How many gallons of gas is that? Take the energy value of gasoline @ 33,526 kJ per liter. Therefore, 1.6 billion kJ / 33,526 kJ per liter = 47,724 liters = 12,607 gallons. That's all I need to send good ol' Rusty Grease Lightnin' into the skies. And fly like an eagle!

{R.I.P Twinkies?}

At an avg. $4.50/gal in the Rockies, 12,607 gallons is a whopping $56,731. And I thought I would be conserving energy, and saving with the new math. Might as well go back to school for one year instead, and earn 1/4 of a reputable degree. Long-term, I'm gonna have to figure out what makes "thrust" work. I'm pretty sure it sounds like "delta-vee." Short-term, I'll never be able to siphon that much gas. Or, store it all in those nifty 96 Gallon trash bins I saw on Breaking Bad. Or, haul it anywhere, as I would need 132 of them. Gasoline converts at .74 kg to 1 liter, it's lighter than water by 25%, so that's 35,315 kg. But, still way to heavy for my payload capacity. I would need 10 Ford E350's minimum!

Well, there's only one of me, so I'm sticking to the metric system for precision measurements. American Standard is easier to fudge, and people like to say they can bench press 350 l.b.'s, not 160 kilos because it sounds better. It just doesn't mix well with newtons. If I'm powerlifting, I'm not thinking in terms of newton-pecs, and joule-quads. I'm thinking about force production. That's newton-meters, bro-kofski. F= ma. Period.

Aha! I have it. Fly the Ronald McDonald Jolly Roger at full mast. What if I can pull the energy I need for my Launch, out of my Lunch-- Oreo Cakesters. 1300 Calories in one package! 4.6 kc/g!! Even more than Twinkies (3.8 kc/g), and a good bit more than a Healthy Choice frozen dinner(1.38 kc/g). They also taste better than both of those options, IMO. I'm not getting paid to say this either, I'm just looking for more bang to my buck. Not getting paid too much at all these days. Hence, my V8 rocket engine tea party. Ok, so that equals ~5,439 kilojoules @ 4.184 kJ/kc and unit snack weight is 285g. I've got at least 100 boxes of those guys back there. That's a head start, and they stack perfectly. Is there more pound-for-pound energy in a box of snackfood than a jerrican of motor spirit?

{The Final Countdown}

Survey says 45,000 kJ/kg of gasoline, 19,000 kJ/kg of Cakesters. And the Survey is made by the General Conference on Weights and Measures, the only thing they're ever wrong about is their pageboy haircuts. So gas has twice the KE as the Cakesters, and it's 15 times cheaper per kilogram at $.74/kg vs. $11.58. The Oreos are all advertising weight. Where's the economy in that? But, I'll need to use the snackies as fuel because I can actually haul them-- it's far less risk than the petrol. And, again, the perfect rectangular boxes turn the cargo space Tetris madness into a cool breeze. Still, this is costing far more than I thought. Taxation without representation! I need to "find" a few extra credit cards, stat! It's gonna take a wee bit more napkins to work out the details.

How's 'bout a roll of industrial paper towels from the bathroom at an interstate rest stop. "Waitin', on a Sunday afterno-oon. At an interstate rest stop. Rest stop..." yep that's exactly how that goes. Washing hands. Humming STP. Sanitizing. I feel safe... well, it turns out that a semi-tractor-trailer full of those goodies ain't gonna get me into orbit. But I can at least blast up to the Kármán line, and take a space-selfie. That's gotta be worth enough Instagram eyeballs to pay off my house, I'm assuming. And I wrote the equation on one of my original fortunes, before setting off on the road ("How Many G's," Part 1), v-initial = root 2gh. Plug in the value for 100,000 meters of altitude and I get 1400 m/s for my initial velocity. Plug that into the magic KE formula with the weight of Ol' Rusty, (1/2)x(4,100 kg)x(1400 m/s)^2 = 4,018,000 kJ. Divide by the KE in 1 kg of snack weight, and that's only 212 kg @ 3.5 packages per kg @ $2.00 wholesale price and the new sum is ~$1,500 depending on the source.

It's not orbit, but... I can get my hands on the supply, just gotta find a reputable wholesaler. And 1400 m/s, that's 140 G's-- I'll have to distribute it over 120 seconds like NASA does, otherwise I'm clocking out to a TMNT shred-fest. Sell that to Left Lobe Baby Sinclair, TinkerFuel. Hmm... Ok, my Homer bucket full of borrowed gas has officially tipped over. Manually rolling down driver's window, back to reality. Why aren't I factoring for air resistance at this point? Too complicated, fix it in post. Worry about the rest of the rocket science first. Because, in the end, I'm a positively minded g-force adhering citizen. It's Paragraph L, Section 8, of Interstellar Regulations. If I can't get into outer space on middle school math, then what was middle school any good for? To hear all the Jack FM originals. To live to forget about braces. To mind the Cold Equations. Marilyn?

Follow the series in ..."Spinning Thermonuclear Beachballs of Set."

Credit: Letters by LX @ ILX, colors by Whisk-e.