From: user@example.net   
      
   James Nicoll wrote:   
   > 	Although the idea of being able to convert angular   
   > momentum into linear with actually throwing stuff is an old   
   > one in space: didn't both Tsiolkovsky _and_ Oberth briefly   
   > toy with that before seeing the obvious problem?   
      
   As a bit of whimsy - how about two long thin contra-rotating masses,   
   with an electric motor at the pivot point that makes them contra-rotate.   
   (Motor is powered by sun.)  Two chopsticks spinning against each other.   
      
   One probe & one dummy mass are mounted on the tips of one of the   
   chopsticks.  They can withstand some ridiculous amount of acceleration.   
      
   The contra-rotating chopsticks are spun up over some extended period of   
   time, until the tip velocity is some unimaginable figure that defies   
   modern materials science, and then the probe/mass are released.  One   
   goes one way, one goes the other.  The probe carries out useful science,   
   and the dummy mass causes a catastrophe somewhere two thousand years later.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)