Rules->
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You are in Purgatory forever until you do this, purgatory takes the form of the earth before human civilization started.
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You are gifted a perfect memory and the mental fantasies to wield it, along with a 160IQ
3.The world will function mostly normally though it will for the most part remain steady state in the sense that the earths core will never grow cold, Continents will not move, the sun will never expand, life around you will not evolve etc.
4.Unrenewable resources will very slowly return to the earth if you mine them out, this will not occur if you do not desire it.
- You cannot be trapped or maimed in a lasting way.
Comments
Copy of the original post in case of edits: Rules->
You are in Purgatory forever until you do this, purgatory takes the form of the earth before human civilization started.
You are gifted a perfect memory and the mental fantasies to wield it, along with a 160IQ
3.The world will function mostly normally though it will for the most part remain steady state in the sense that the earths core will never grow cold, Continents will not move, the sun will never expand, life around you will not evolve etc.
4.Unrenewable resources will very slowly return to the earth if you mine them out, this will not occur if you do not desire it.
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Ok, so the Earth BEFORE human civilization. No other people. None of our current infrastructure. None of humanities centuries of collected knowledge. And NO life will evolve?
I dunno, man. Perfect memory and 160 IQ or not, I don’t think that’s doable for one single human.
Best I can do is try to build the most insanely massive trebuchet I could, and just fling myself into orbit (anyone want to do the math for me on how big of a trebuchet would be needed to fling a 160lb. human into orbit?)
You’re probably never going to achieve that as one person. Even with a great IQ and perfect memory, there are so many technologies that stack on each other to get to mid 20th century tech.
You’re talking about a single person reproducing the culmination of thousands of years of civilization, human progress, scientific and engineering discovery in every field imaginable.
I understand you have unlimited time, but your materials don’t. Assume for a moment you manage to make the technology of the 1950’s, just the sheer logistics of what you would have to produce, and the quantities involved would take decades, if not centuries or millennia, and in that time everything from your lubricants to propellants, your steel, aluminum, and thousands of other materials would degrade.
All in all, it just seems impossible to me
I’d Dr. Stone it
I think the big stumbling blocks on this hypothetical are as follows:
1.) IQ is bullshit. You can’t determine someone’s intelligence with a single test and it can’t be quantified.
2.) being highly intelligent doesn’t mean you’ll be good at making a spaceship.
3.) neither will having a good memory
4.) spaceship production and flying require so many disciplines and people.
you have created an impossible hypothetical. You’re asking for someone to harvest metals, manipulate them into materials you can use, harvest fuel to fuel this mission, build a computer, do the books worth of coding, and on and on and on.
The answer is no, you can’t.
I think this is extremely difficult but not impossible. Yes you have unlimited time but your labor is a serious limiting factor. My plan would be to build a rocket with the minimum tech possible, staying away from electronics and the industrial base they would need. Before you say no, think about model rockets. They have nothing but a cardboard tube of solid propellant. We have been able to make that for thousands of years. Solid fuel rockets have been used to launch orbital payloads.
You just need to add a few things to get to orbit successfully.
I think you could easily get to a solid 1800’s tech level by yourself. Mining, smelting metal tools etc. After that you need to focus completely on automation. You will need to invent whole new techniques of automation and labor saving devices.
Mechanial computers will let you control your automations; think Babbages difference engine. They won’t be as sophisticated as modern computers but they would let you operate simple automated factories etc. Now you can build the components you need in a reasonable time.
By now you are approaching a very early 1900’s tech level. Since the goal is orbit this might be enough. I’m assuming you don’t have to get down.
Here are the minimal things I think you need. A pressure tight container. You can get this with steel or aluminum if you can refine it. Pressurized gases are doable for atmosphere and solid propellant is easy. Mechanial computers and inertial guidance are also possible at a low tech level. I think that’s about it.
You don’t have the tech for sophisticated so everything has to work correctly. So I think you approach that by using the biggest resource you have; time. You build lots and lots of rockets, start small and work up to larger. perfect your design, perfect your controls until you can launch an automated rocket into orbit successfully everytime. Not easy by any stretch but probably possible