Of Slingshots and Escape Velocity

How do you get to the heavens?

Daedalus made wings and attached them to himself and his son using wax to be able to fly. The Greek mythology tells that the son Icarus didn’t listen to his father and flew too close to the Sun. The heat melted the wax and soon he found himself flapping his bare hands.
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Such a story is laughable nowadays. First and foremost, the higher you go, the cooler it becomes. Two, if Icarus had flown higher and escaped the earth’s gravitational pull, then lack of oxygen would have killed him before high temperatures did. Which brings me to the topic at hand - Escaping the Earth’s Gravity. When we were young we always thought that going to the moon and stars was a very easy thing. You just point to the stellar bodies and take off using any airplane. On my part i was a bit dumber. I used to shine my old man’s metallic torch towards the heavens na kushangaa mbona sioni the illuminated spot on the moon. Years later, i wondered why jet fighters and airline pilot wouldn’t detour and go to the moon and come back. Of course the brain grew and now i know that a MiG 31 is the only plane with the capability of touching the stratosphere.
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Later on in high school, i learnt that to get to outer space (>100km up) you’ll need to beat the earths gravity, something which is done by achieving the ‘escape velocity’. 11.2 km per second. AGIP to Imara Daima in a second. Of course doing that is/was a big challenge. I say that because up until today, no other method is feasible except the three-stage rocket propulsion. You start with a booster, stage one separation and then capsule/shuttle/probe acceleration. Yes, i know by now you’re wondering what the pioneer of this was thinking and applied it practically.
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The ability of man is infinite, unless he does something stupid and extincts himself. If you thought that was mad rocket science, then you’re about to get more bamboozled. Slingshotting. Just like how David alizungusha slingshot na kuachilia jiwe towards Goliath, same has been applied on a worldy scale, literally. Rocket scientists discovered that if an already orbiting body is released outwards in a particular direction, in gains incredible speeds, and that’s how Voyager 1 gained its speeds to the current 17.1km/s even on its space graveyard. As it went towards Pluto, iko wazimu aliona anaweza tumia the other planets of the solar system to slingshot the probe as it went further. Mind you escape velocity vary for planets, Jupiter’s being over 60km/s!
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[COLOR=rgb(44, 130, 201)]Probes in the solar system

But the scientists who take the cake are those from Japan who calculated and released a probe to land on an asteroid. Hio hesabu sio ya pesa nane. Imagine doing the slingshot thing on earth, going in the direction of the asteroid(asteroid not in a similar trajectory), doing further slingshots using other celestial bodies, and then detouring to go around and meet the the asteroid and match its speed and make a landing, dig into the asteroid, do the necessary analysis in situ in case it doesn’t make the trip back home, detach itself and find its way back home! Saa hio sisi we are either scheming on how to scam the taxpayer/ client/ business partner or tunaimba Mexico maize, thuraku or resisting to vote for the second round using slingshots and feya. SMH!
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T[COLOR=rgb(44, 130, 201)]rajectory of trip back to earth with the samples. Note the speed variation

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nice, learnt something new

Omwami kesho tukikata famous grouse nipatie summary, I’ve discovered I’m not only dumb but very slow.

Niko na pimple chungu kwa butt cheek

Hiyo slingshot mechanism si ngumu venye unafikiria. Think of a normal slingshot where you decide on when to let go of one string in order to determine the direction where the stone will go.

So with spacecraft, you just have to know the required velocity that you need to slingshot from a body in space. The next thing is to determine the Hoffman transfer orbit in order to know where you’re going. Ukishajua hizo mbili you then locate the point of “exit” from the orbit of the body you’re using to slingshot into space.

This is why space travel takes little energy in terms of spacecraft fuel - you need the most fuel during lift off only. After that, it’s just “sliding” in space along the transfer orbit because the gravitational pull off the body you’re going to causes you to accelerate towards that body.

But hii maneno ni interesting sana, only problem is that you need to have at least Masters level education in relevant subjects in order to fully understand it. I hope someday I will be able to understand these things beyond the layman level.

Ona sasa, if it weren’t for this thread we wouldn’t have known we tuko na VE rocket scientists! Good point

I think I understand how the whole slingshot thing works. What I’m struggling to even comprehend is the escape velocity speed of 11 kilometers per second. With such speeds you can travel from Nairobi to Western in just 35 seconds

Look at how these guys are analysing velocity & space craft dynamics … but Uliza the same guys what their oulook is on kenya’s growth past 2022 , watasema …RUTO LIWE LIWALO … bure kabisa matacore ya lanye , senji taker taker , brare noogle !

Babuon sheeple please look for relevance and pasture elsewhere in a political thread. Bleat na huko mbali

Mambo ya space travel ni very interesting. The power generated by burning rocket fuel can generate millions of horsepower in thrust to push a spacecraft into space. To put this into perspective, a spacecraft can take under 2 minutes from lift off to breaking Mach 2 speed… And less than 30 minutes to orbit the earth at least once. You can imagine that - before umalize kunywa kikombe moja ya chai, astronaut ametoka Kennedy Space Center na amezunguka the Earth at least once.

…get the message , acha mambo mingi !

Kama mwisho ya akili ni siasa za Kenya, don’t you think we’re being unfair expecting too much from you?

Si uko na umama @sh*tDispencer , that’s the best you can do ? hahahahahaaaaaaa :D:D:D:D , you are better off being a bookwarm geek .
ION …I really liked your analysis btw ! good stuff , bring us more … :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Karura forest kwàthirē àtìà?

I read somewhere that in the next decade, USA tech entrepreneurs will begin prospecting for rare minerals in heavenly bodies. They want will able to drill asteroids to mine minerals. Musk and Jeff are currently leading the rest in this regard. Meanwhile in Kenya we know who will be the president in 2050.

There is some place I read that even temporary escape from the earth is not all that. even objects slung very far from earth usually come back after many years.

fuck off for once na upuss za siasa

Also because you don’t lose energy to air friction, so you can maintain the velocity you escaped earth with without starting the engines due to inertia.

Voyager I launched in 1977, is now 21.7billion km from earth hurtling away at 17km/s. This was at 02 June. Hio haiwes rudi kama boomerang my friend. After completing its primary mission with the flyby of Saturn on November 12, 1980, Voyager 1 became the third of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity required to leave the solar system! On August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to cross the Heliopause and enter the Interstellar Medium.

Check again. The probes don’t maintain 100% KE. For Voyager, it had to use Titan’s gravity to get a trajectory and velocity it now has

Of course you can’t maintain 100% due to gravity of other objects influencing your trajectory. You don’t need the main engine for gravity assist, you can use secondary thrusters for re-orienting the space vehicle.