"What Goes Up" is a science fiction short story by English writer Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1956, and later anthologized in Tales from the White Hart.

Like the rest of the collection, it is a frame story set in the fictional White Hart pub, where Harry Purvis narrates the secondary tale.

In order to quell his stories, Purvis spins a tale describing an attempt by an Australian researcher nicknamed "Dr. Cavor" to develop atomic power.

In order to overcome it and investigate, Cavor builds a special jeep that will, in effect, winch itself along a climb of several thousand miles to the center.

Freed of its restraint, he "falls" back to earth from that height, thus turning into a human meteor.