
How much energy does it take to lift a squirrel on a solar sail? - iamelgringo
http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/02/15/the-laser-elevator/
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fiftyone
Not much, I would say about a snickers worth. Heres how...

1\. Eat Snickers. 2\. Feel Satisfied 3\. Unwrap Solar Sail. 4\. Wrap Squirrel
in Solar Sail into a soccer shaped ball. 5\. Punt Squirrel. 6\. Measure
Distance. 7\. Call and report your findings to PETA. 8\. Eat another Snickers.

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Electro
Well 1 snickers contains roughly 1.1 megajoules. Say the squirrel weighs
roughly 250 grams - I've never had the compunction to capture and weigh one -
which would mean it would take 2.45 joules of energy to lift it 1 meter
against Earths gravity.

With the low end of human muscle efficiency in the conversion of energy into
power. Ideally you'd be able to fire the little beastie ~63km off the energy
of a snickers.

