I have friends who are very tolerant (I think & hope!) of my messaging.pic.twitter.com/alDtLmlbbv
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And I rechecked: I missed one order of magnitude on the initial energy calculation. It's more like 9*10^8 J to send 1kg out of the solar system. Still, the key point is the same: human-level energy consumption is about the same as what's required to go to the stars
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This does not imply that it's possible, though I personally rather like the idea of a pavlova-powered starship. It's just an amusing comparison.
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When I was a kid my uncle (a physicist) asked me: if the energy it took to heat your bath water one degree was used to lift you, how far could it lift you? I started making progress by imagining trying to heat my bath water by dropping things into it.
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What a great problem! A nice variant would be to use a kettle raising a cup of water up to boiling temp. 70 C * 1/4 liter * 4 kJ / liter C = 70 kJ to raise to boiling point. Which is enough energy to raise a person 100 meters in the air.
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If you're going to power a starship with sweet treats, you're really missing a trick not calling it the Oreo-n Project
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That would make it amazingly great that this is impossible in part because of the SALT treaty!
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