So, I believe what we really want to know about Throwing Objects While in Orbit is this:
Do we possess the scientific and logistical abilities to create a meteor shower, or a celestial display, to entertain the folks on earth? I realize that payloads are expensive, but could a rich person pay to have a special payload carried into space, along with his orbital mechanics science worked out. (paid for, of course) Instructing the astronauts on when and where to toss the payload out so that the rich person can turn to his guests at his evening party and say, “watch the sky…I have ordered a celestial display better than any measly meteor shower!”
While I’m pretty sure we do have the capabilty, I think the sheer magnitude of such an endeavor would overwhelm whoever tried to plan it.
Meteor showers are caused by the debris fields of comets. These feilds are irregularly populated with different concentrations of meteoroids (chunks of stuff).
You would have to spread out a lot of “stuff” over quite a bit of area to get a remarkable shower.
Someone els will be along later to post specifics, I hope.
This reminds me of a little idea I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while me. In lieu of burial or cremation…Would it be possible to launce my deadness into space and let me “burn up” on the way back? Do I have too much mass? Like was said, most ‘shooting stars’ are the size of a grain of sand. Will I incinerate or would some midwestern family find my sizzling corpse in their back yard?
I had the same idea about 25 years ago. But then I had to read a fictionalized account of the manned space program to dash my hopes. I recall that James Mitchner [sic?] in his novel “Space” brought up this discussion on a slightly different problem: How to bring two Gemini spacecraft together. In the novel, the astronauts were trying to think of a way of replicating the experience on earth. I think (therefore, I’m not so sure), that the solution was to have two jeeps circling around at a constant speed. To slow down one would steer with the radius further out (hence, a higher orbit). To speed up, reduce the radius. (I was never sure if this was based on an actual event with some literary dressing, or if James M. was trying to explain the less-than-intuitive aspects of orbital mechanics to his audience.)
As a result of this, my “bowling ball from space” idea was to be buried for that day. Much has changed however; given the plight of the Russian Space Program, perhaps they would be opened to this idea for the right amount of cash? Kinda of an out-this-world fireworks for the rich and bored? Just give me credit for this idea if it should take off… so to speak.
Cool, farout and NoClueBoyboth confused me for Cecil! Two in one thread!
Just a hunch, but I suspect that the Russian space program would do anything, for the right price, while we Americans would somehow feel it was “undignified”. It’s always struck me as funny that the Russians are the ones with the capitalist program.
And for burial in space, Carl Sagan did get some of his ashes sent to the Moon. But his remains were cremated first on Earth, it being much cheaper to launch that much less mass. And of course, Sagan is a bit of a special case.
You can have some of your ashes sent into space for a fee (or send the ashes of a loved one). A company called Celestis does it. Lately, they’ve been sending their packages into low Earth orbit and allowing them to naturally decay, so the deceased’s ashes do get to reenter and might even be visible to somebody. But earlier they sent a few more expensive satellites to higher orbits that will persist for a long time to come – some indefinitely.
By the way, the larger an object is, the greater the odds it will be visible on reentry. That’s because there’s more of it to burn off. Human bodies, intact ones, are large enough that bits of them may make it to the ground. They won’t neccesarily be recognizable, though. They’ll likely be visible to anybody who happens to be looking in the right place at the right time. I believe a sample of Sagan’s ashes are on one of the Celestis satellites, not on the Moon, but I could be mistaken.
And one person’s ashes have landed on the planet Mars. Two engineers working on assembling Mars Pathfinder (at least, I think it was Pathfinder; it might have been the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander) made a pact while in an odd mood one night – if either one died before the spacecraft was encapsulated for launch, the other one would try to smuggle some of his ashes on board. One of them did die, and his buddy managed to get a small amount of his ashes mixed into the epoxy used to fill up some voids in the lander. It wasn’t official, however; they didn’t ask permission first.
The late astronomer Eugene Shoemaker became the first person to be interred on the Moon when a sample of his ashes, placed officially on board the Lunar Prospector spacecraft, slammed into the lunar surface along with the spacecraft at the end of its mission.
I’ve read that a decrease of about 1% of orbital velocity is done to achieve reentry from low earth orbit. That being so, a projectile fired West from a shuttle, at say 260 feet per second, should be set for reentry. A compound bow can fire arrows over 280 fps.A golf ball can be hit at 260 feet per second. Likewise a slingshot can propel a ball bearing to a reported 500 feet/sec. The key is human powered, but with stored energy and/or leverage. You expect the procjectile would still burn up on reentry? Consider if it has a large area relative to its mass, suppose that the projectile deployed a heat-resistant cone or balloon. The Douglass Paracone was an early manned spaceflight proposal for getting an astronaut to ground safely from orbit, using a small retrorocket and a large-surface area cone (2 meters across) made of “Rene-41” alloy fabric, with a teflon coating. It lthen has a terminal velocity of 42km/hr.
Consider that while meteors burn up on reentry, their velocity is much higher than orbital speed. They’re coming it at odd directions because the orbital paths cross. I’m not entirely sure a body placed in Earth orbit would burn up. Note that some meteors, while buring on reentry, do reach the surface. And when they do, they’re not glowing hot, but cold. Of course, this is because they started out cold, and only got heated briefly during the actual reentry.
Chronos, I thought Sagan’s ashes (a sample) were just put in orbit, not sent to the moon.
Toss me from space, and pack my middle finger in some kind of ceramics, ensuring it’s the only part of me that makes it back to the surface. Hell, for a statement like that, I’d accept it while I’m alive. God knows I try to show my contempt for planetside life on this backwater in every other way possible…
