[meteorite-list] Thank you sterling

From: cdtucson at cox.net <cdtucson_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:21:12 -0700
Message-ID: <20090320132112.J6LXA.227518.imail_at_fed1rmwml32>

Sterling,
Just a quick note to thank you for all the good work you do for this list.
There are a number of great people that contribute to this list but You are by far THE most significant contributor of all.
If someone is drowning , you try to save them. Unlike others (Garrison) who simply describe the water conditions.
Your posts are always relevant and interesting and you are a true class act. Please keep up the great work.
Carl Esparza
IMCA 5829
meteoritemax



---- "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Eric Wichman wrote:
>
> > I've got a few silly questions...
> > Let's say you had a large canon powered by compressed air
> > or some other high pressure gas.
>
> Why not use a small rocket or a rail gun or a mass driver or...?
> Doesn't matter to the problem how you launch it, OK?
>
>
> > If you fired a projectile ( a moon rock ) from the surface
> > of the moon toward Earth, would you be able to create
> > enough force to reach escape velocity?
>
> That's an engineering question. If you're a good enough
> engineer, the answer is YES.
>
>
> > Would the projectile continue to increase speed after leaving
> > the barrel of the canon...?
>
> Eric, go read a book by that nice Mr. Galileo or Mr. Newton.
> Seriously. Get a simple old-fashioned physics text about dynamics
> and the basic laws of motion and energy.
>
> If you toss a rock, does it continue to speed up AFTER
> it leaves your hand? If it did, then the experience of tossing
> a rock would be that it goes further and further, faster
> and faster, until it's so fast that it begins to glow with
> frictional heat and blazes out the Earth's atmosphere like
> a meteorite!
>
> Funny. When I toss a rock, it just makes a little arc
> and goes Plop! in my neighbor's yard.
>
>
> > or does it stay at the velocity from which it leaves the barrel?
>
> If you toss a rock straight up, does it continue at the same
> constant 32mph that it had when it left your hand and climb
> at a steady speed upward against the Earth's gravity, until it
> leaves the Earth's atmosphere behind and enters space...
> all at a stately 32mph?
>
> When I toss a rock straight up, it slows down and down
> until it can't go any higher, then falls back and hits me on
> the head. In the interests of experimental science, I suggest
> you get some good hefty rocks and try these tests. Space
> travel would be so easy if your Laws of Motion were true.
>
> OK, skip the tests.
>
> You're on the Moon. You pick up a big rock and fit it
> into your Super Duper Steam Powered Slingshot, capable
> of firing a rock at 2380 meters per second, which oddly
> enough is the Moon's excape velocity. (Actually you could
> be a bit slower and still get to the Earth.)
>
> The rock leaves the Super Duper Steam Powered Slingshot
> at 2380 meters per second. After only one second of traveling
> upward against the Moon's gravity, the rock is only traveling
> at 2378.378 meters per second. That's because the Moon's
> gravity is pulling back down on the rock with a force sufficient
> to slow it down by 1.622 meters per second.
>
> The Moon's gravity will continue to slow the rock at the rate
> of 1.622 meters per second per second until, about 2 days later,
> the rock is just barely crawling along at a snail's pace thousands
> of miles above the Moon, when it reaches a place where the
> strong gravity of the faraway Earth is pulling foward on the rock
> just as strongly as the gravity of the much closer but weaker
> Moon is pulling back on it, and the rock starts to fall toward
> the Earth, now gaining speed instead of losing it.
>
> Three days or so later, your mild-mannered rock will come
> blazing into the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of almost 11,186
> meters per second!
>
> > Would the stones survive the trip through our atmosphere?
>
> Here's where aim counts: the right angle of approach or perhaps
> a grazing orbit or two before re-entry... Anything is possible
> if you have sufficiently accurate control of your path. It's
> do-able.
>
>
> > If the projectile (moon rock) did survive all of this,
> > would it be considered a meteorite?
>
> That would depend on how the argument on this List came out...
>
>
> > Scientifically speaking, wouldn't this be an interesting experiment?
>
> Scientifically speaking, no... But, dude, it would be so much
> kewler than a potato cannon or even a watermelon cannon!
>
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
>
> ______________________________________________
> http://www.meteoritecentral.com
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Received on Fri 20 Mar 2009 01:21:12 PM PDT