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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May 4 2006, 11:40 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
My concern is that the VSE is going to become Apollo Mark 2, where it takes
away resources for real science missions just to put a few extra humans on the Moon for slightly longer stays. Then the politicians of 2020 or so decide it is not worth the effort, or the public gets bored again, or both, and we end up with a few more flags and footprints, the Moon is abandonded for another 40 years, manned Mars missions get pushed even farther into the distant future, and robotic planetary missions lose the momentum they had regained in the 1990s and 2000s. All for yet another stunt to show the world just how great the USA is. -------------------- "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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May 5 2006, 06:56 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 307 Joined: 16-March 05 Member No.: 198 |
My concern is that the VSE is going to become Apollo Mark 2, where it takes That sounds an awful lot like the grumbles you used to find (and maybe still find) on Usenet about the Apollo missions not being real science missions, usually from those seeking to show how unmanned missions do "real science" ever so much better. away resources for real science missions just to put a few extra humans on the Moon for slightly longer stays. Then the politicians of 2020 or so decide it is not worth the effort, or the public If the VSE were only "another stunt to show the world just how great the USA is" America would not be sending people back to the Moon. It would be sending them straight to Mars instead. gets bored again, or both, and we end up with a few more flags and footprints, the Moon is abandonded for another 40 years, manned Mars missions get pushed even farther into the distant future, and robotic planetary missions lose the momentum they had regained in the 1990s and 2000s. All for yet another stunt to show the world just how great the USA is. The real danger from the politicians to the VSE (IMO) is that:
Compare that to the present situation since the VSE was announced. NASA is presently in more or less the position it would have faced in 1972 had the Shuttle been given the go-ahead while at the same time it has also been authorised to keep sending Apollo missions to the Moon for a few years longer--*but* without being given the funding necessary to fully cover both. It goes without saying that one consequence would surely have been that other NASA programs, especially expensive unmanned ones like Viking and Voyager with no connection to Apollo or to the Shuttle, would have been hit as NASA took funding from them to make up the shortfall in the Shuttle and/or Apollo programs. ====== Stephen |
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