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Did You Guys Smell Something Burning?

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:35 pm
by jrrdw
I have been thinking about the facts of spudfiles, like all the members. From what i see there are aproximently 3 new members every day, from all over he world. That means spudfiles has world wide reconision. That being said and reconized, i think it time to shoot for interglactic reconision, heres how that mite happen.....

Somebody build a simple C02 powered tennis ball launcher, as small as possible. Make the finish color scheme match the spudfiles home page. Do the same with a few tennis balls.

Send it to NASA Space Center, include a instruction sheet on how to use it exactly. They are to put some kind of tracking device's in the tennis balls.

Then the astronouts can fly to space, open the shuttle bay doors, load up the cannon, and bounce one off Satern, or some other far away planet.

Our grandkidds can watch it hit 50 years from now!

I wonder witch way it will ricochay(sp), news update aproximently 150 years from now.

TOPIC LOCKED. JRRDW ill re-open this thread once this promo cannon is sent to either NASA or the Russian space agency. Until then we wont be able to reply to this thread. :-(

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:40 pm
by ProfessorAmadeus
I love it! This would be a great idea! I think that it would blow you back a couple feet in zero gravity. Plus its super freakin cold in space and unless it was metal it would explode. Its either cold or hot.

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:25 pm
by frankrede
I have done it, you would need to launch something extremely big fro that kin of tracking ability but nice try, ut imagine the disaster if tehy shot it in their ship on accident?haha nice idea

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:38 pm
by SpudStuff
And considering it costs ~$2 million per pound of cargo.....

Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:42 pm
by noname
And it would weigh at least 5 pounds....
Someone start donating :lol:

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:00 am
by frankrede
I'll break out the piggy bank, but does it really cost that much?

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:29 am
by noname
I wouldn't doubt it.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:19 am
by CS
Thats what the Russians charge if I recall. Something like 200,000G to get a ride in the space shuttle. Anyways, they wouldnt do it. 3 members a day? Sure thats a alright number for the site, but for world recognintion? I dont think so. I mean how many kids at school besides your freinds know about SpudFiles? None.

A pound of cargo roughly equates to 20G in cost. Lets say this gun weighs 5lbs as above. So your gonna spend ~50$ on a gun, while they spend 100G to haul it into space? I think not, sorry for being blunt, but a dumb idea. [Go cry about it, but thats the truth]

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 6:14 am
by jrrdw
Cry about your thoughts Pimpmann? Stop flattering yourself! Like i said i like your way with words. Of course i didn't think about the cost, who does when thinking these kind of ideas, not untill they are thought about from different prespectives, in this case soon to be tax payers, (some of yous). Still a fun idea, and who's to say they wouldn't do it for fun, they have taken experments up and done them before???

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 6:57 am
by rna_duelers
They took spiders into space to see how they would survive and copulate etc...What was the use of that??Super spiders that control space shuttles and fix space stations?Of course not because they could!So why not have a cool gun in space,hell they could use it for balistic data in space.(like we really need that data)

A better idea,well a different one..Why not one of us become an astronout and take up one of our personal possesion,one being a tennis ball gun or similar displaying the -SpudFiles- website and other information/decorations.Plus it would be cool to talk to some one that has been in space.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 3:19 pm
by boilingleadbath
I believe the shuttle's payload costs 10,000$/pound to launch.
(that means that it takes 25 tons of stuff up, and that sounds reasonable... so I'll trust my memory)

Non-shuttle launches are probably cheaper, especialy commercial cargo-lifting rockets.

That said, the concept of launching a tennisball in outerspace indicates ignorance of orbital mechanics; the shuttle is in low earth orbit and is thus moving about 7km/s. However, to get the TB interplanetary, you need 11km/s.
Launching a tennisball at mach 12 would be mighty impressive... much less having the velocity consistancy to acctualy aim it at something.

...and you won't see it hit. Remember, even shoemaker-levy (that one comet that hit jupiter) had fragments over <b>5 billion</b> times heavier than a tennis ball, and probably moving faster, and that was fairly dim.
(anyways... collisions of the tennis-ball magnitude occur very frequently already)

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 3:29 pm
by Recruit
Well geus we better start working on a Hybrid for this :lol: .

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:19 pm
by jrrdw
It would still be fun to try. Pimpmann, where did you find the info? Do a web search or something?

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:35 pm
by MisterSteve124
No it should be a golf ball cannon because like that guy from russia hit a golf ball into space we will shoot a golf ball into space. And I don't think they're gonna charge 20 grand a pound just because it costs a person 500 grand to go in space. Plus it doesn't take up any room they can put it on their fricken lap.

Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 11:03 pm
by CS
Jrrdw, a wiki article. BLB's figure may in fact be closer to actual cost, I was simply going off what information I had available to me via a google search. Still I wouldnt think that contesting the value of 20G/pound vs. 10G/pound, simply because it will easily equate to over that of 50G.

I was simply saying that the ratio between the cost of transport versus that of the original item. Without even taking what BLB had to say of it not even working [didnt even think about that]. There not going to charge you. There going to go, are we gonna haul this thing at our cost of ~10G-20G to outer space for some little kid? Hell no!, I think it would be more cost effective for them to toss it in the dumpster. They believe there hugely under funded, what a great way to waste money! Also what a way to show the government at how sh*tty they are at distributing collected tax dollars!

While searching for the occasion in 1971 in which a GB was hit on the moon, I came upon this <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... article</a>. I did not know that this recently planned 'tee-off' was planned, or if it ever even occurred. This golf club company had to hold many conferences with NASA to discuss the safety of such. Although they got the Russians to do it, its still partially the USA's space station. Also it was not disclosed as to how much they were paid to do this stunt solely for advertising purposes. That means it was probably a significant amount. Hey, I guess you can send it to the Russians.

Poorly thought out idea, although dont feel bad your among your peers that do this everyday. Ill converse with the other mods, but as far as this threads go Id lock it and await Jrrdw to send a potato gun to NASA with 'SpudFiles'...