[AR] Re: Size question

  • From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 23:32:02 -0400 (EDT)

On Tue, 31 May 2016, Jonas Bjarn? wrote:

Ah, there we go. I new I had seen an article about the Aerobee escape shot
recently:
http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/1957-two-tiny-pellets-were-first-ma
n-made-objects-escape-earths-gravity-180954622/?no-ist

Although the article doesn't make it clear, note that even if you set aside the fact that there's no useful payload, there is *no* proof that anything was really accelerated to escape velocity. The "two pellets" was just a statistical guess as to what the explosion of the charge would probably have accomplished, based on assumptions of uncertain accuracy. The explosion was observed, yes, but not the trajectories of individual pellets; there was no practical way to track anything that small.

Henry

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