11 ms·

Manhole cover launched into space with nuclear test is fastest human-made object

• version_five 4y ago
  I'll take the physicist at his word that he worked it out. I wish they would have mentioned friction - sure the thing was going fast when it left the ground, but the drag from the atmosphere would be ridiculous at that speed and the object not propelled. I'd like to know how much speed it lost by the time it got out of the atmosphere
  • brucethemoose2 4y ago
    On the other hand, it will leave most of the atmosphere within a second and has the kinetic energy of the Empire State Building traveling at ~60 miles an hour (40mwh+ if its ~200 pounds). And maybe the nuke's radiation moved some air out of the way? Yeah, that is a problem for a high energy physicist. But intuitively... even if it "exploded," the metal fragments may have still made it to space?
• stevespang 4y ago
  [dead]
• Veliladon 4y ago
  Reminds me of that Mass Effect conversation: "Once you fire this husk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not 'eyeball it!' This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!"
  • orf 4y ago
    Surely space is so huge and projectiles so tiny that the chance of it “unexpectedly ruining someone’s day” at any point would be super infinitesimally small?
• cozzyd 4y ago
  The Parker probe should exceed this velocity.