I was trying to imagine a spherical blast wave, like a bomb going off and what would happen at the interface of two such events. My thinking is that the waves won't travel through each other but compress and give a slightly greater force back the other way. INSERT - it would be like launching two fighter jets, exhaust to exhaust, in opposite directions.
Imagine a rocket with a tube through the centre of the combustion chamber like a tube of Smarties and that a single pill can be dropped at will.
Each pill will have a coating that will ablate in a constant way and time in the rocket's thrust stream. On stripping the coating, the pill which contains a slightly faster more powerful exposive than the thrust propellent, ignites.
If such an explosive exists, I am imagining it would give little steps, when needed, in the lift flight.
A Jetsons cartoon >>>>> reality attempt.-- wjt, Nov 27 2009 If the rocket's path weren't perfectly vertical, then I imagine that the spherical shock waves would knock it off course.
I would bun, but my negligible knowledge of physics forces me to withold croissant until it can be proven that this wouldn't fail miserably.-- DrWorm, Nov 27 2009 //My thinking is that the waves won't travel through each other//other people's thinking on the other hand...-- FlyingToaster, Nov 27 2009 The waves being hot, sticky waves of mass.-- wjt, Nov 27 2009 I would bun, but my negligible knowledge of physics forces me to withold croissant until it can be proven that this would fail miserably.-- Voice, Jul 24 2010 [Flying_Toaster] //other people's thinking on the other hand...// Far be it from me to accuse anybody of linear thinking ..-- mouseposture, Jul 24 2010 random, halfbakery