this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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God I'm such an idiot, I always thought gravity pulled rockets downwards and you need to apply thrust to take off, but it's the other way around! You run the engines to stay on the ground and board the rocket, then just switch them off to start!
And the recursive raptor engine that contains itself three times, genius!
Well it helps when aerodynamic drag pulls you upwards. I thought it was a drag force, but I guess it's a bit of a misnomer.
I think the really visionary point is that the crew goes inside the engine.
All these fucking nerd engineers have been putting the crew outside the engine for decades, to the point that some even put the crew on the opposite end of the rocket!
Well duh, how else do you keep the crew warm in space? It's not like you have heat pumps or furnaces.
Well, you see the gravity thing only works for the lower third of the rocket. Then gravity changes direction, that's why you need the engines to create thrust