4 ms·
Until it comes back, crashes into Earth and sends mankind the way of the dinosaurs...
by dhimes 9y ago
Until it comes back, crashes into Earth and sends mankind the way of the dinosaurs...
- PerryCox 9y agoIt doesn't have enough mass to do anything like that. It'll burn up in the atmosphere if it does come back to Earth. Currently projections of it coming back to Earth in the next million years are at 6%.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster#Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster#Fut...
- oh_sigh 9y agoStarman has no more kinetic energy than was put into it by the rockets, so it crashing back on to earth would cause a smaller explosion than what would have happened if the rocket just blew up on the launch pad.
- M_Bakhtiari 9y agoWhat about gravity assists, harvesting kinetic energy from other planets? It would make for a good supervillain story, intentionally ramming the Earth with a gravity assisted projectile, but a terrible weapon system. Any conflict likely being already over by the time it does its tour of the solar system and arrives back, so it's probably better to just use the rocket fuel to build a conventional bomb. Or better yet, use nukes.
- dhimes 9y agoYes, oh_sigh misses a little but mine was just a humorous comment anyway so no sense going down the rabbit hole here lol.