3 ms·
The fastest object ever launched was a manhole cover
- DrScump 9y agoBrownlee... expected the manhole cover to fall back to Earth, If he claims that it was going 125,000 mph and thought it fell back to Earth, he's not much of a scientist.
- eesmith 9y agoHe thought the atmosphere would slow it down enough that it wouldn't escape, even though it was initially going at well over escape velocity. From http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html#PascalB http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html#Pasca... > But the assumption that it might have escaped from Earth is implausible (Dr. Brownlee's discretion in making a priority claim is well advised). Leaving aside whether such an extremely hypersonic unaerodynamic object could even survive passage through the lower atmosphere, it appears impossible for it to retain much of its initial velocity while passing through the atmosphere. A ground launched hypersonic projectile has the same problem with maintaining its velocity that an incoming meteor has. According to the American Meteor Society Fireball and Meteor FAQ meteors weighing less than 8 tonnes retain none of their cosmic velocity when passing through the atmosphere, they simply end up as a falling rock. Only objects weighing many times this mass retain a significant fraction of their velocity. Also, from http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Brownlee.html http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Brownlee.html comes this quote from Brownlee: > "As usual, the facts never can catch up with the legend, so I am occasionally credited with launching a "man-hole cover" into space, and I am also vilified for being so stupid as not to understand masses and aerodynamics, etc, etc, and border on being a criminal for making such a claim."