[Spaceships] getting into orbit without superscience?

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

That goes so far into crazy that I have to ask where it’s from.

Not 100% certain. I think it was synthesized by my imagination mixing up other crazy things I read (I did need to go look up the old name for mercury to get the spelling right), but it might be from an old SF novel or short story I read long ago, as growing up I read a bunch that were written between 1930 and 1960 (thus, quite some time before I was born), and some that were older. I do think that I've read at least one story that used metallic hydrogen for something that it makes no sense to use metallic hydrogen for, and it may have been some sort of alloy.