You do need some sort of thrust to get into orbit though. You can get INTO space with something like spinlaunch, but you won’t stay there without a second stage to circularize the orbit.
It is theorized now that heat was actually an issue for the steel bore cap that was shot by a nuke at over 150,000 mph, which very much exceeds escape velocity.
While its more or less of a joke about “shooting a manhole cover into space”, some think that at least a tiny bit of that bore cap could have made it.
You do need some sort of thrust to get into orbit though. You can get INTO space with something like spinlaunch, but you won’t stay there without a second stage to circularize the orbit.
I mean you could stay in space, if you were to reach escape velocity. Heat might be an issue though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob
It is theorized now that heat was actually an issue for the steel bore cap that was shot by a nuke at over 150,000 mph, which very much exceeds escape velocity.
While its more or less of a joke about “shooting a manhole cover into space”, some think that at least a tiny bit of that bore cap could have made it.