Posted on 02/05/2005 3:15:15 PM PST by Indy Pendance
Edited on 02/05/2005 3:17:49 PM PST by Lead Moderator. [history]
The coolest spy plane ever built, SR-71. I was watching Modern Marvels on the History channel last night. This aircraft broke all kinds of international speed and altitude records which still have not been beaten today. It was nothing for them to fly at 80,000 feet and it was a piece of cake to fly at about mach 3, or about 2100 mph. For those of you old enough, remember the sonic boom days? About 750 miles would create a sonic boom, or a doppler effect.
Here's the question, this plane was so fast, it was faster than the earth's rotation. What would happen with time over a long sustainable period of flying time? If it goes faster than the earth's rotation long enough, will it be ahead of time when it lands, or likewise in the opposite direction, will it go back in time. Do you think Einstein has an answer? Saturday night ponderings.
A buddy of mine was also AF. He was around when they refueld them, and explained it.
The seals they use are very specially designed, some kind of exotic materials. They are designed to give a perfect seal at operating temperatures, but until that puppy gets fired up and runnin good, it leaks like a seive.
Is is fast enough and sustainable long enough? Study Einstein's theory and who knows? We are on the verge of that technological knowledge.
Even the Enterprise needed additional velocity from the sun to achieve it...
" Lets assume that they travel at a speed near 20,000 miles per hour. This is about 9 kilometers/sec or something like 0.00003 times the speed of light. This produces a special relativistic time dilation factor of 1+.5*(.00003)^2 = 1.00000000045"
"If we multiply this by the 6 month trip, then we get that the astronauts would be about .007 seconds younger than if thay had stayed on the Earth. There is also a slight gravitational time dilation effect ( 1 - 2GM/rc^2 )^1/2 because their trip was at a lower gravitational field than on the surface, but this is not very large compared to the special relativistic factor."
My point was, Einstein's relativity has nothing to do with the Earth's rotation, either forwards or backwards. It has to do only with movement through dimensional space. So when you write:
If it goes faster than the earth's rotation long enough, will it be ahead of time when it lands, or likewise in the opposite direction, will it go back in time.
You are exhibiting a Hollywood-like misunderstanding of the Theory of Relativity.
Did you work on the plane ? support group ?
Its an urban legend.
Check either/or wilkpedia or google it.
Since we're sort-of on the topic of time/space travel, anyone read "The Hunt For Zero Point", by Nick Cook? :)
We need Spock to help us here. Where would Kirk be without him?
Source?
Satellites.
Leave it to a fellow geek to find the formula.
Nope. Never worked on it. Just a corporate pilot who has always been fascinated by the military's 'black' programs. I've got friends/contacts who did though.
Astronauts that travel close to the speed of light return to Earth shorter, green to gray in color, and they have big almond shaped eyes.
This was taken at the armaments museum at Eglin.
The LBJ gaff is urban legend. Col. Rich Graham, an SR-71 pilot and commander of the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, did some research on this very matter. He obtained the original text of LBJs speech and tape with everything correct as SR-71. The official transcript released to the press differed with "RS-71" in place of SR-71. Apparently, the stenographer had heard incorrectly and recorded "RS-71" in all three places.
OK, the real question might be, if we can travel faster than the speed of light, what would happen?
but, you knew this is where I was going to direct the thread eventually.... :)
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