Posted on 06/23/2010 1:17:10 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
For spacecraft that zoom through the cosmos at thousands of miles per hour, calculating which one is traveling at the fastest speed is more complicated than simply clocking the first to cross the finish line.
When space agencies calculate and establish speed records, these numbers need to be defined and qualified, because there can be more than one frame of reference. In other words, the speed of a spacecraft can be calculated relative to the Earth, the sun, or some other body.
The record for the highest speed at which a spacecraft has launched and escaped from Earth's gravity is held by the New Horizons probe. This 1,054 pound (478 kg), piano-sized spacecraft, which launched in January 2006, sped away from the Earth at a blistering pace of 36,000 miles per hour (almost 58,000 kilometers per hour).
As the first mission to the distant Pluto, New Horizons is currently on a trajectory that will take it more than 3 billion miles away, toward the dwarf planet.
New Horizons' escape speed from Earth beat the previous record of 32,400 mph (about 52,000 km/h), set when Pioneer 10 set out for Jupiter in 1972.
After New Horizon encounters its primary science target, Pluto, and possibly a few of the asteroid-like objects in the Kuiper Belt that stretches beyond Pluto, the probe will leave our solar system. Here, it will join four other spacecraft, and could vie for yet another title: fastest interstellar spacecraft ever launched from Earth.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifeslittlemysteries.com ...
I think the USS Excelsior was a transwarp ship. But Scotty thought it was a piece of junk.
Geddoutta here, I used to EAT Sport Fury’s for breakfast!!
My rig had 3 twins, 4:11 gears and a Hurst shifter. Used to avg about 6 mpg, but gasoline was about 30 cents a gallon so who cared.
But I’m a tellin’ ya, she was a real screamer!!
“Millennium Falcon”
She made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.
Piano sized? Would that be an upright, baby grand, or grand piano? Idiots.
While the Heart of Gold was a sweet ship, Infinite Improbability Drives are kind of wanky. The Bistromath seemed like a more elegant way to travel.
That line has always bothered me. A parsec is a unit of distance. Then again, they never really explained exactly what a "kessel run" was.
Kessel in german is a metal pot for stewing or boiling; usually has a lid or a very large pot that is used for boiling. My conclusion is that it had something to do with pot smuggling. :)
Kessel was also referred to by C3PO -
being forced to work in the spice mines of Kessel.
I think my ‘69 Charger RT would have enjoyed meeting your Goat. 440, 2 Holley double pumpers, high-rise manifold, dual point ignition, and other goodies It would be fun regardless!
I lived in Northern NJ and always had a shotgun rider with me. If the car we were racing looked as if it was pulling ahead, my guy would shoot out a tire.
We never lost. ‘course it did get a bit tough to find soemone to play with after a bit....
Now that doesn’t sound like fun! I would hate to lose a tire-they were expensive!
In NJ we never paid for our tires, someone else did.
“I’m gonna go with the Delta Flyer which attained warp 10...also known as infinite speed...yeah, that’s it... “
Nope it was the Shuttlepod Cochrane that hit warp 10 then people turned into lizards and the fans groaned loud enough to be he4ard from the Delta Quadrant...
I am such a geek.
“That would be the starship Heart of Gold, the first space craft to contain the Infinite Improbability Drive.
While the Heart of Gold was a sweet ship, Infinite Improbability Drives are kind of wanky. The Bistromath seemed like a more elegant way to travel. “
Yeah, though I prefer a TARDIS.....
That's the first explanation I've seen that actually makes sense. Thanks!
That is the size of New Horizons.The spacecraft is comparable in size and general shape to a grand piano and has been compared to a “piano glued to a sports-car-sized satellite dish
http://triton.towson.edu/~schmitt/gl/index.php?topic=f07report2
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