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I thought that fire inheritly pushes things, and that all you needed to do to make a rocket, was to take a sizable flame, like a campfire or something, flip it upside down so that the flame pointed down instead of up somehow, and attach it to the bottom of something.
This is amazing. I love the idea that a bon fire big enough could change the earth’s orbit.
I mean, it's kinda true. A rocket just makes fire which expands and pushes whatever it burns out to make it go fast. You got the fire, the fire pushes things away from whatever you're burning and the rest is just optimisation.
If you manage to make a helium balloon that floats in the air, attach a burning log fire to the bottom of it and enclose it in a way that the air intake is on the top and outlet is on the bottom you've made an engine that you just need to aim with a ballast weight.
Still wrong, but you were onto something.
Its upside down you know. The rocket engine fires upwards and what you see is after it pushes back, Newton's First Law and all that (equal and opposite reaction).
If it pushed down, it wouldn't work in space cos there's nothing for it to push against.
Well in theory with a big enough campfire it would work. So you weren't entirely wrong.
Some Outer Wilds vibes here...
Yours made me chuckle