What materials would be needed to build a homemade spaceship, in the apocalypse?
So, out in Kansas, in the DEC Oil Refinery, a group of people, called simply the Disciples, have set up a community. From the outside, it seems like a utopia, one where man and mutant get along peacefully, and everyone is kind to each another. But the Disciples have plans that they keep top secret. The leader of the community, Jacob Goldman, plans to build a rocket ship, and take his followers from Kansas to an island in the middle of the Pacific. My question is, what materials would be needed?
-They only have a limited amount of fuel at the Refinery, so having a plane or ship go back and forth 900 miles again an again. No other deposits of fuel are known, so they can they can't get more.
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1 answer
Don't build a rocket ship. Build a good ol' fashioned airplane.
He doesn't need a rocket ship. While Elon Musk is saying BFR can be used for point-to-point travel on Earth, the resources needed to build a BFR are HUGE. Rockets are an extremely unforgiving technology, and the resources needed are significant. There are other problems too:
Navigation. A rocket ship doesn't have much time to steer. Landing on an island requires to pinpoint accuracy. Hard to do that at rocket speeds unless you have computer-controlled (more advanced technology - can't just stick a leftover iPhone in there) thrusters with GPS (oops, GPS is offline because of the apocalypse) navigation.
Fuel. You also need very high-quality fuel (kerosene will work, which is doable, but diesel won't) and lots of other goodies. Not easy for a small group, especially post-apocalypse.
One-way. Without a lot of infrastructure in place in Kansas and on the island, the rocket ship would only be good for one trip.
No practical way to test before the big day.
Realistically, Jacob needs to build an airplane, not a rocket ship.
Materials can be salvaged - if it isn't the most efficient airplane, that's OK, as long as it can fly. Make it an internal combustion engine driven propeller plane instead of a jet and you get more flexibility on fuel and can salvage engines from cars.
Navigation is no big deal. Maps, landmarks, dead reckoning. Even in the wide-open Pacific you can find your island without GPS, as long as you're flying at 300 MPH instead of 3,000 MPH.
You can fly the plane around Kansas to test and get the kinks out before making the big trip.
Multiple trips are possible. All you need to make the next trip is fuel. Well, bring along duct tape and a toolbox to take care of the inevitable small fixes. But multiple trips are plausible.
Building a plane bigger than the Wright flyer won't be easy, but with enough abandoned equipment from Kansas City - maybe even some actual (though rusting and old) airplanes, it can be done.
Edit based on comments to Question
- Capacity needed is 30 people. A DC-3 can handle that. I would actually try for something a little bigger in order to be able to add extra fuel tanks. The tricky part will be engines. The DC-3 has 1,200 HP engines, which is a bit more than you can salvage from cars and small trucks lying around the refinery lot. But Jacob is resourceful, he'll figure out something.
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