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Terminal Velocity
Niobium wrote:
As the feather hits the mesosphere or wherever, it starts to hit air molecules, it slows while the pellet with low surface area keeps falling until it is hitting much denser air and it burns up in re-entry like a meteorite. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that reentering objects aren't subjected to high heating until they encounter much denser air. This is not the case; most of the heating occurs at very high altitudes. A feather reentering from orbit will never reach the ground. It's kinetic energy has to go somewhere. The feather does work on the air which gets very hot which in turn heats the feather, destroying it, at a higher altitude than your steel pellet. Jim Davis |
#12
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Interesting forum, everyone. Reading this thread, I wondered if some sort of propellor system would be of any use in converting the work done by a re-entry capsule into mechanical motion, and in that way dissipate the energy? Maybe something like a spinning heat shield?
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