| At WPI once, in the student lounge called the wedge, a bunch of the sci-fi club decided that we were bored. Our solution? Design a trebuchet that could launch the Goat's Head (a school mascot of sorts, a 64lb bronze statue of a goat) into geosynchronous orbit.
It was determined that the trebuchet would be made out of an infinitely strong substance and that wind resistance would be negligible, just to make it not a completely annoying calculation.
So anyway, the final result was a trebuchet that had something like a 50,000 ton counterweight, was approximately 2km long on the short end, then the pivot, then a 6km long arm with a 2km long sling.
Rough calculations estimated that the tip of the sling would be going something ridiculous like mach 23.
No calculations were made to support this theory, but it was postulated that the huge object moving that fast would heat up enough to cause local weather disturbances.
Yes, we were very, very bored. :) |
