Timeline for Can you catch a spaceship with a train on the Moon?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 8, 2019 at 0:22 | comment | added | smci | Well, where is the flattest 200km segment on the moon? and how flat is it? | |
| Nov 25, 2018 at 20:17 | vote | accept | Mike Nichols | ||
| Oct 30, 2018 at 0:00 | comment | added | John | if it does follow the terrain hitting the train becomes impossible as the train will be rising and falling constantly. hitting a portion of track that rises suddenly will be the same as hitting the ground. | |
| Oct 29, 2018 at 14:10 | comment | added | RonJohn | @Battle the ship hits the train at a relative speed of 100 kph, but the train is also moving relative to the unmoving Moon. | |
| Oct 29, 2018 at 9:23 | comment | added | Battle | @RonJohn - Actually the difference in speed would matter. An object at 1100 kph hitting an object at 1000 kph will cause a collision equivalent to 100 kph (as if an object of 100 kph would hit a static object). Of course any collision beyond the tolerance (which may be somewhere around 10-30 kph, which would be quite a punch already) could derail the entire process in that short time frame and eventually cause the ship to crash on the moon or fly past it. Or just cause any of two to rotate. | |
| Oct 28, 2018 at 14:39 | comment | added | John | I think this vastly overestimates how flat the lunar terrain is. trains normally follow the terrain and elevation this one can't. | |
| Oct 28, 2018 at 2:36 | answer | added | Thucydides | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 27, 2018 at 13:10 | answer | added | MParm | timeline score: 4 | |
| Oct 27, 2018 at 12:22 | answer | added | Loren Pechtel | timeline score: 7 | |
| Oct 27, 2018 at 11:06 | answer | added | Amadeus | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 27, 2018 at 10:02 | answer | added | Tumbislav | timeline score: 9 | |
| Oct 27, 2018 at 2:32 | comment | added | jose_castro_arnaud | The window of opportunity for contact is too small: 200/8300 h = 2/83 h = 120/83 min = 1 min 37sec. No way to decelerate quickly enough, no time to connect and transfer cargo. And the contact must be precise by the milimeter (per second). | |
| Oct 27, 2018 at 0:00 | answer | added | The Square-Cube Law | timeline score: 14 | |
| Oct 26, 2018 at 23:54 | answer | added | user535733 | timeline score: 26 | |
| Oct 26, 2018 at 23:43 | comment | added | Andon | The idea seems sound, but I'm not certain. Instinct says that it'd need a longer track, and any sort of accident would be... bad, as @RonJon says. | |
| Oct 26, 2018 at 23:13 | comment | added | RonJohn | While it seems theoretically doable, the engineering challenges are enormous. For example, if the ship hits the train just a bit too hard, the train goes crashing into the tracks at 8300 kph. | |
| Oct 26, 2018 at 22:39 | history | asked | Mike Nichols | CC BY-SA 4.0 |