Fastest Spacecraft Ever?!?, Which one is it? |
Fastest Spacecraft Ever?!?, Which one is it? |
Jan 24 2006, 08:43 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 648 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Subotica Member No.: 384 |
There was statement that recently launched New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft to leave Earth. The velocity was 16.2 km/s relative to the Earth according to "Jonathan's Space Report".
QUOTE After the Star 48B burn, the payload had reached escape velocity not only with respect to the Earth but also relative to the Sun (The velocity was 16.2 km/s relative to the Earth and I estimate an asymptotic velocity of 12.3 km/s, corresponding to 42.6 km/s relative to the Sun... So: New Horizons is fastest to leave Earth at 16.2 km/s (relative to Earth). Voyager-1 is fastest to leave Solar System at 17.374 km/s (relative to Sun). Now that is OK. but what is this? Today's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" features launch of New Horizons and in text bellow image is one particularly interesting link to "Guinness world of records"... Guinness world of records; There "Mr. Guinness" claims that the fastest spacecrafts ever, were two Solar probes "Helios 1&2"...According to him those spacecrafts had speed of 252,800 km/h which is staggering 70.2 km/s...BUT RELATIVE TO WHAT????? Can somebody explain this? -------------------- The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
Jules H. Poincare My "Astrophotos" gallery on flickr... |
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Jan 24 2006, 02:52 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 510 Joined: 17-March 05 From: Southeast Michigan Member No.: 209 |
Here's a pointless activity for the space sim jocks - though after hearing about dB Drag Racing I know that people do invest a lot of time in apparently pointless activities.
If you wanted to build and launch a spacecraft with the sole purpose of exiting the solar system and beating Voyager 1's sun-relative speed, what combination of today's launch vehicles and gravity assists would you use, given a spacecraft mass equivalent to V1? I'd fiddle about with it myself, but I think the learning curve would outstrip the amount of free time I have. -------------------- --O'Dave
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Jan 24 2006, 02:59 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
QUOTE (odave @ Jan 24 2006, 09:52 AM) Here's a pointless activity for the space sim jocks - though after hearing about dB Drag Racing I know that people do invest a lot of time in apparently pointless activities. If you wanted to build and launch a spacecraft with the sole purpose of exiting the solar system and beating Voyager 1's sun-relative speed, what combination of today's launch vehicles and gravity assists would you use, given a spacecraft mass equivalent to V1? I'd fiddle about with it myself, but I think the learning curve would outstrip the amount of free time I have. A solar sail vessel could pass Pluto's orbit in just five years and outdistance Voyager 1 shortly after that. It could reach the nearest star in "only" a thousand years or so. And this is just with solar light. With a powerful enough laser... fuggedaboutit. http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/faqs.html -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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