3 ms·
thats a lot of mass in low earth orbit that may not burn up during a deorbiting re-entry.
by tekno45 7y ago
thats a lot of mass in low earth orbit that may not burn up during a deorbiting re-entry.
- stcredzero 7y agoTrue, but an airliner full of fuel might also cause an explosion and fire. Those are flying over highly populated cities, and we trust the industry to retain control of them and set them down safely. The kinetic energy of a 30 metric ton datacenter moving at 9.8 km/s is 1,440,600,000,000 joules. That's a bit more energy than 344 tons of TNT and a bit more than 12,000 gallons of gasoline equivalent. That's actually much less than the energy embodied in a 747 with full tanks. (If I've calculated correctly.)
- tekno45 7y agoOne is aerodynamic and pilotable in atmosphere and has lot of active parties involved at all times The other has to be pretty hands off to be profitable. and would be a literal building in space. Both would be dangerous to have crash, it's easier to prevent the plane from coming down though.