[meteorite-list] Thank you sterling

From: Jerry Flaherty <grf2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:06:59 -0400
Message-ID: <EEB9C98615C64439B45A9F20651A5DDA_at_ASUS>

I certainly second those sentiments.
Jerry Flaherty
----- Original Message -----
From: <cdtucson at cox.net>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>; "Meteorites USA"
<eric at meteoritesusa.com>; "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 1:21 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Thank you sterling


> 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
>>
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Received on Fri 20 Mar 2009 06:06:59 PM PDT