Meet Brian Walker. He’s your average eccentric inventor, having created a 300-gallon water balloon launcher for extinguishing forest fires, Taser gloves, and a whirly toy.
He also may be crazier than the craziest person you have ever met, because Brian Walker is prepared to fire himself, riding a homemade rocket, off a 24-foot crossbow. Lest the idea seem too insane, Walker is using good science…um…fiction, having modeled his rocket on spaceships from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. I mean, hey, those things work in space, right?
The project, Rapid Up SuperHigh (or RUSH), is currently under review by the FAA. It would involve Walker using a carbon-fiber crossbow string to initially launch his rocket, which would then be powered by 1,350 pounds of thrust from a jet turbine. During the flight, Walker, wearing a surplus Russian spacesuit, would pull 10Gs and then descend back to the ground using hydrogen peroxide fueled rockets.
Me, I’m not sure I’d trust myself to a Russian surplus anything. Also, if I remember correctly, the last time I tried to shoot something I built myself into the air, it hit a tree and broke. Yeah, that’s not too promising.
[via SCI FI Tech]
