[meteorite-list] UA Science Team Readies For NEAR Landing

From: Stuart Forbes <stuart.forbes_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:41:07 2004
Message-ID: <00b301c0919d$7e4f67c0$471abc3e_at_oemcomputer>

>Actually, the spacecraft may just embed itself into the surface.
>It isn't going to "bounce off like Genen Cernan did", as you asserted in
your >original message.

So it "may" embed itself, the assumption being you concede that it also may
not. If it doesn't embed itself, then unless it somehow looses all momentum
on impact then it will bounce, just like Gene Cernan (unless you know of a
different type of bounce).

Given that no one's ever tried this before, I'm curious as to how you can
know so much about what's going to happen that you dismiss a basic concept
such as Newton's third law.

Oh, and before anyone places any bets, it won't leave Eros's gravity field,
as its travelling too slow (or someone at NASA's gets their numbers/units
wrong). Its orbiting (too slow to escape from Eros) and it's velocity will
be reduced further, so it falls down to Eros. It won't gain any velocity, so
there is no escape....

I hope it survives as much as Ron does, but my money's on a wildly bouncy
spin.

Regards,

Stuart Forbes
Edinburgh, Scotland
stuart.forbes_at_dial.pipex.com
Received on Thu 08 Feb 2001 02:05:13 AM PST