[JumpCrisscross]

How do I mix them? I said the alternatives to rockets are nukes or a space elevator, both of which, for Earth to space launch, are beyond current feasibility. Ditto with most of the ideas on that Wikipedia page. Air breathing only gets you 10% of the way and the others are limited by our materials.

[JPLeRouzic]

Sir, English is not my native language but what I see on my screen is that you wrote:

> It's chemical rockets, nukes or a space elevator. At least given known physics.

So I have a hard time to understand how that would mean: "the alternatives to rockets are nukes or a space elevator"

In addition nukes are rockets (as far I know), so how could they be alternatives to rockets?

And they are not beyond feasibility, NOVA has been studied at NASA extensively, I think it was even fired for testing but I can't find a reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_(rocket)

And there are other proposals, rockets are really a dead end, I only need a few centuries to be proved right!

[dtparr]

Regarding the interpretation of

> It's chemical rockets, nukes or a space elevator. At least given known physics.

He's giving a series of 3 things that he's asserting are viable given known physics, so the second two are alternatives to the first. Would it make more sense to you with an Oxford comma? E.g.

> It's chemical rockets, nukes, or a space elevator. At least given known physics.

Are you interpreting the nukes/elevator as sub types of chemical rockets? That might be written (counterfactually) as

> It's chemical rockets: nukes or a space elevator. At least given known physics.

[thaumasiotes]

> He's giving a series of 3 things that he's asserting are viable given known physics, so the second two are alternatives to the first.

To be clear, the meaning of the construction used is that, given known physics, the only alternatives are the list elements (chemical rockets, nukes, or a space elevator). This is completely conventional American English.