Elton John rouses Atlantis crew - with Rocket Man
The crew of space shuttle Atlantis were woken this morning by Elton John's Rocket Man, followed by a personal message from Britain's national musical treasure. Sir Elton said: "Good morning, Atlantis, this is Elton John. We wish you much success on your mission. A huge thank you to all the men and women at NASA who worked on …
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geek question
geek question.
beeing in micro gravity,
the stores weigh not a lot.
but they do have momentum the crew have to control.
just how much energy / callories is it taking to move the tonne of stuff around the station.
just a though, on earth it would be a back breaker, but in micro gravity, I have no idea.
Think it's not the weight...
..but the mass. Once the object's moving, it's probably hard to control.
Any (wannabee) rocket scientists out there can give input?
kinetic energy
= (mv^2)/2
so per tonne @ say 2 m/s => 2 kJ, 4 m/s => 8 kJ, 6 m/s => 18 kJ, etc
without counting the – quite important factor of – inefficiency of say astronauts needing to move themselves around, absorb momentum, change trajectories etc
similar to the work done to ride a bicycle, without the friction
Thanks for that...
...still - Yikes! Think I'd rather move boxes at Tesco. Wouldn't like to be the receiver of a "Here you go!" shout.
Exponential. Scary.
Ta. - Andus.
Mass and Inertia
The energy to move a "tonne of stuff" depends on how fast you wish to accelerate the mass to get it moving, and then how fast you decelerate it to stop.
@David - well strictly
work = Energy / time
so it's the work to move a 'tonne of stuff' in a set amount of time that you are thinking of, while the Energy involved is a different question
although I acknowledge that I said 'work' done riding a bicycle when strictly it was Energy I was referring to;
so say you call 1 – strong – human power = 0.5 horsepower ~= 375 watts, that's 375 J/s, would allow acceleration of 100kg at a tad less than 3 ms^-2, deceleration similarly.
conversion back to F=ma gives F=300N, similar to the weight of a 30kg load at normal gravity, so sounds right in a 'constant load' scenario, although human peak power reaches closer to 1kW => 4+ ms^-2 for that 100kg load in say a <10% duty cycle. As Andus says, that could be a surprise when sent Tesco style – NASA Breakfasts are high protein :-)
compare a cricket fast bowler who bowls a 150g ball at 150km/h, kinetic energy of 130J, baseball pitcher 105mph, kinetic energy 163J; the difference being that the amount of time for acceleration is an important limiting factor
Alternatively / more precisely
Energy = work
power = [Energy|work] / time
although the basics are unchanged, it's Energy – Joules – that connects to speed, while power – watts, horsepower, etc – connects to acceleration/deceleration
Rocket Man - nice touch!
But I thought Endeavour carried out the last EVA? Was this unscheduled?
Anyway, Kudos to Sir Elton for that one.
Re: Rocket Man - nice touch!
Endeavour was the last EVA by shuttle crew members. This one was by ISS people.
Should've got David Bowie instead
A rousing rendition of Space Oddity would've made for an interesting last day.
That, or a snippet of Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Didn't he get...
...one of the earlier mission alarm calls this year? My memory plays odd tricks these days, so that might be one of them there figment things...
Obviously just trying to cheer them up
"We know you love being an astronaut, but nobody else thinks it's important any more."
No Chris de Burgh then?
A spaceman came travelling.
Well, not anymore I suppose
No Thin White Duke?
Major Tom might have been more appropriate for the Space Oddity that is what remains of the Shuttle program.
Sad to see it go.
The Firm?
They should have played the 1987 classic from The Firm, 'Star Trekkin'.
Gawd no
I remember how that starts.
Silence to full blast in about 3 seconds, talk about a rude awakening!
I would think it would be a great emergency siren though
Nice to see...
...on those IBM laptops, they're running XP..
Hope they've done the Tuesday update...
Really, NASA?
You could have gone with Kate Bush's cover, rather than Elton John. Kate did it /so/ much better.
You could have gone with Kate Bush's cover
Whew! I've wanted to "cover" Kate Bush since her first album....
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