Thunderbirds are go.
Jun. 10th, 2018 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrI know it's cheesy, but usually the stupid isn't *too* extreme.
But I finally got around to watching Season 3, episode 8: Crash Course.
They really mangled things this time. they have a pair of ground-to orbit space frieghters collide. One is going up, the other was heading down.
First off they start arguing with each other about who is supposed to change course. Oy. Other comments make it clear that the writers are using trucks on highways (or maybe ships at sea) as a model.
Sorry folks, when you've got that level of space traffic, there *will* be Space Traffic Control (STC) to prevent exactly this sort of thing (and a whole bunch of others as well). Even more than with Air Traffic Control, you *will* use the course they assign you. We'll get to why in a bit.
Now, these ships were going in essentially opposite directions. And they had to be at something approaching orbit velocity. That's 8km/sec. So collision velocity would be more than 15 km/sec (I went low because 15 is easier to work with than 16).
Rule of thumb. A mass impacting at 3 km/sec releases the energy you'd get by detonating an equal mass of TNT. The energy release goes up as the *square* of the velocity. So at 15 km/sec, they are moving 5 times as fast, so they'll release the energy of *25* times their combined masses in TNT.
And these freighters likely mass tens if not hundreds of tons. So there won't be much left after the collision (and what will be left will be spreading all over the place at high speed creating hazards for everybody else in or near earth orbit.
BTW, *this* is why you *need* STC. A ship impacting a station or a city on the ground will make 9/11 look like a campfire.
But no, the ships are mostly intact and stuck together. And there's a hazard from their cargoes if they get mixed. Which is also a major WTF as one of them is carrying *liquid* aluminum oxide. Aside from there being no sane reason to ship it as a liquid, given that it melts at something over 1000 degrees a leak would be a major hazard regardless of what the other ship was carrying.
But I finally got around to watching Season 3, episode 8: Crash Course.
They really mangled things this time. they have a pair of ground-to orbit space frieghters collide. One is going up, the other was heading down.
First off they start arguing with each other about who is supposed to change course. Oy. Other comments make it clear that the writers are using trucks on highways (or maybe ships at sea) as a model.
Sorry folks, when you've got that level of space traffic, there *will* be Space Traffic Control (STC) to prevent exactly this sort of thing (and a whole bunch of others as well). Even more than with Air Traffic Control, you *will* use the course they assign you. We'll get to why in a bit.
Now, these ships were going in essentially opposite directions. And they had to be at something approaching orbit velocity. That's 8km/sec. So collision velocity would be more than 15 km/sec (I went low because 15 is easier to work with than 16).
Rule of thumb. A mass impacting at 3 km/sec releases the energy you'd get by detonating an equal mass of TNT. The energy release goes up as the *square* of the velocity. So at 15 km/sec, they are moving 5 times as fast, so they'll release the energy of *25* times their combined masses in TNT.
And these freighters likely mass tens if not hundreds of tons. So there won't be much left after the collision (and what will be left will be spreading all over the place at high speed creating hazards for everybody else in or near earth orbit.
BTW, *this* is why you *need* STC. A ship impacting a station or a city on the ground will make 9/11 look like a campfire.
But no, the ships are mostly intact and stuck together. And there's a hazard from their cargoes if they get mixed. Which is also a major WTF as one of them is carrying *liquid* aluminum oxide. Aside from there being no sane reason to ship it as a liquid, given that it melts at something over 1000 degrees a leak would be a major hazard regardless of what the other ship was carrying.
