TAKE a small car cruising down the highway at 90 kilometers per hour and put its kinetic energy into something the size of an ice cube. That's the energy of the small projectile screaming down the barrel of Livermore's gas gun at 8 kilometers per second-three quarters of the velocity needed to escape Earth's gravity.
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If you could preserve that little ice cube as ice during the entire time, you would have a respectable amount of kinetic energy that could used to propel a spacecraft. Sure, it doesn't sound like much, but a hundred horsepower or so applied continually for a certain amount of time will get you going plenty fast. A hundred horsepower is 100 hp times 550 lb-ft/hp equals 55k pounds!
The ice cube sent into space at 8 km-sec will eventually melt and vaporize into space. It will be harmless at that point.
It would be a neat trick, if you could pull it off.
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