SpaceX the Alan Notes

Reason is Newton's Third Law. In vacuum, there is nothing to "push" against. You must react against ejected mass.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

Musk went beyond the SpaceX to explain how far off we are from things such as, say, elevators to space.

And pls don't ask me about space elevators until someone at least builds a carbon nanotube structure longer than a footbridge

Ion thrusters are great, but have extremely tiny force (photon thruster even less). Must have more thrust than weight or you don't go up.

He also left followers with a parting thought regarding the use of electricity in space travel.

Final one: anything launched by a railgun (if you could ever reach ~ Mach 27) would explode upon exiting the barrel in our dense atmosphere

But real-life Musk didn’t address other inventions seen on the show; what of this self-packing suitcase, for instance?

(“The Simpsons”)

This isn’t the first time that people have fact-checked the physics behind “The Simpsons.” Earlier this month, the “MythBusters” guys dedicated an episode to testing out some of the most iconic “Simpsons” scenes, including that time Homer attempted to stop a wrecking ball from knocking down his house.