this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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In Portal, using the portal gun to get to the moon is the obvious space travel usage, but I think people are overlooking how it'd let you trivially break the rocket equation.

Hell, you could build a >1g torchship using nothing but the ocean.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (48 children)

Like, the worked example from Atomic Rockets has 7 kilograms of cat litter moving at 90% of lightspeed hitting a stationary target with 195 megatons of kinetic energy.

https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (45 children)

But yeah this is the ultimate doomsday weapon. You can accelerate indefinitely for free, you just have to wait.
(and if you can put your portals in orbit of a more massive object, you get faster acceleration than 1g)

So you don't need more than a portal gun, a tungsten rod, and some time to blow the atmosphere off a planet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (43 children)

Sir Isaac Newton may be the deadliest son of a bitch in space, but the deadliest son of a bitch in the Half Life universe is Cave Johnson.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

@[email protected]
I think this is predicated on the assumption that a portal acts as if it's anchored the same way a bell is to a rocket engine.

I don't think it is. Does anything in the games show a portal imparting thrust onto the wall/object it's mounted on? I don't think so. I think portals can't be used for thrust.

It's also pretty clear to me that transfer through a portal is instantaneous, not limited to lightspeed. You can hang out/change direction halfway through a portal as much as you want.

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