Never underestimate the power of a beer can

I've been immersed in a book for about a week, and sff.net has Topsy-ed while I was away . . . two things, David, more or less relevant to the ongoing ramble –

Back in 1965 I wrote a program that could write World War I Flying Ace stories.  Two nested programs, actually, one in COBOL inside one in MAD (Michigan Algorithmic Decoder, a sort of Poor Man's ALGOL.)  The professor praised the programming and also said something on the order of "You oughta be a writer."  Okay.

Have you come across the model of the "beer-can starship"?  Basically a kind of low-IQ space probe that uses stacked propulsion systems, essentially redefining v-naught through a dozen different regimes until you have something the size of a beer can screaming toward Alpha Centauri at a significant fraction of the speed of light.  Do-able for less than the Apollo Project cost.
  
  
Joe