Deep Space

[Captain]

If I were on a space walk at the ISS and threw a wrench as hard as I could towards deep space would the wrench travel forever until it hit an asteroid, planet or sun?

Or would earths gravity hold it and eventually pull it back to renter the atmosphere and burn up?

 

[Apache123]

I'd put my money on returning to Earth. The ISS orbits within the Roche Radius by quite a bit.

 

[Geico266]

Is it a Craftsman or a Chinese knock off?

 

[Frank Browne]

Unless you can throw the wrench to a speed of about 7 1/2 thousand mile per hour, it will stay in Earth Orbit and eventually re-enter the atmosphere.

 

[flyingron]

Is it a Craftsman or a Chinese knock off?

Craftsman model 1019 Laboratory edition, signature series torque wrench. The kind used by Cal Tech High Energy physicists, and NASA engineers.

 

[Threefingeredjack]

Oddly enough to one's initial impressions and intuition, you would have a better chance, (even thought it would never happen) to get out of Earth orbit if you threw the wrench toward the Earth. Who knows why???

Gee, thought there were enough smart guys here to pick up on that one.

 

[Captain]

Unless you can throw the wrench to a speed of about 7 1/2 thousand mile per hour, it will stay in Earth Orbit and eventually re-enter the atmosphere.

Well, the ISS itself orbits at about 17,500 mph. Or did you mean 7.5 K in addition to the 17.5K?

 

[Frank Browne]

Well, the ISS itself orbits at about 17,500 mph. Or did you mean 7.5 K in addition to the 17.5K?

Correct. The additional velocity would equal the Earth's escape velocity and the wrench could be propelled beyond the Earth's ability to hold it in orbit.

 

[FlySince9]

Craftsman model 1019 Laboratory edition, signature series torque wrench. The kind used by Cal Tech High Energy physicists, and NASA engineers.

Is it, "balls on accurate?"

 

[MassPilot]

It would have to be accelerated from 17,500 mph to escape velocity, which is about 25,000 mph. It would also need to be put on a trajectory that didn't intersect earth.

 

[Frank Browne]

Is it, "balls on accurate?"

It's an industry term.

 

[seand]

It would go into a different orbit and eventually return to the earth due to long term tiny atmospheric effects.

Orbits are extremely counter-intuitive... but depending on the direction you threw the hammer you would be either increasing or decreasing the altitude of the other side of the orbit and potentially changing its orbital plane. The time it takes for each orbit will change as well. This leads to the potential to have times in the future where the hammer's new orbit will intersect with the ISS again.

The amount of velocity you'd have to add to have it send it onto a parabolic escape orbit or reenter the atmosphere on the first orbit is far more than you apply by hand.

 

[Frank Browne]

It would have to be accelerated from 17,500 mph to escape velocity, which is about 25,000 mph. It would also need to be put on a trajectory that didn't intersect earth.

Well, ultimately everything returns from which it sprang.

 

[Geico266]

Craftsman model 1019 Laboratory edition, signature series torque wrench. The kind used by Cal Tech High Energy physicists, and NASA engineers.

That baby is gonna leave the gravitational pull for sure!

It is just me, or does anyone else think Captain could give us a guided tour of deep space and the ozone?

 

[Captain]

That baby is gonna leave the gravitational pull for sure!

It is just me, or does anyone else think Captain could give us a guided tour of deep space and the ozone?

I'm just a guy who flies planes shooting the breeze with other guys (and gals) who also fly planes. Isn't that what you do on a forum?

 

[FlySince9]

It's an industry term.

"I guess the F*****g thing is broken!"

 

[Henning]

Not from the ISS, it'll fall back to Earth.

 

[olasek]

If I were on a space walk at the ISS and threw a wrench as hard as I could towards deep space

To make the effort as economical as possible you would have to throw the wrench exactly along its current speed vector, in other words not "towards" deep space (away from the Earth) but more tangent to the Earth. And the velocity imparted to the wrench would have to be substantial - around 10,000 ft/s. If your throw was indeed that good your whole body would react by flying in the opposite direction - it would slow down your orbital speed by roughly (depending on the weight of the wrench) 100 ft/s - which most likely would make your body reenter atmosphere pretty soon.

 

[Sac Arrow]

I say it won't return to earth. It will burn up on re entry.

 

[Florida Cracker]

Not from the ISS, it'll fall back to Earth.

That's my thought,also, if it didn't burn up, which should be pretty hard for something that solid, right?

 

[Captain]

Post #1 addressed burning up in the atmosphere.

I sorta thought more folks would jump on going forever until hitting another object.

 

[Henning]

That's my thought,also, if it didn't burn up, which should be pretty hard for something that solid, right?

Small, streamlined, case hardened steel, and relatively low speed into the atmosphere I would think it would hit the deck similar in shape and mass as when thrown.

 

[Captain]

Small, streamlined, case hardened steel, and relatively low speed into the atmosphere I would think it would hit the deck similar in shape and mass as when thrown.

The ISS is going 17,500'ish mph. That's a pretty high speed.

 

[spiderweb]

It would go into a different orbit and eventually return to the earth due to long term tiny atmospheric effects.

Orbits are extremely counter-intuitive... but depending on the direction you threw the hammer you would be either increasing or decreasing the altitude of the other side of the orbit and potentially changing its orbital plane. The time it takes for each orbit will change as well. This leads to the potential to have times in the future where the hammer's new orbit will intersect with the ISS again.

The amount of velocity you'd have to add to have it send it onto a parabolic escape orbit or reenter the atmosphere on the first orbit is far more than you apply by hand.

So, I'd have to throw it really, really hard, right?

 

[Henning]

The ISS is going 17,500'ish mph. That's a pretty high speed.

Slow as hell compared to most things traveling through space, barely moving in fact.

 

[Captain]

Slow as hell compared to most things traveling through space, barely moving in fact.

Yeah, but fast enough to burn up, don't ya think?

 

[Henning]

Yeah, but fast enough to burn up, don't ya think?

I don't, not considering the form and the case hardening treatment.

 

[Geico266]

I'm just a guy who flies planes shooting the breeze with other guys (and gals) who also fly planes. Isn't that what you do on a forum?

Yes sir.

I'm just glad there is someone else beside me to give tours!

 

[Geico266]

Small, streamlined, case hardened steel, and relatively low speed into the atmosphere I would think it would hit the deck similar in shape and mass as when thrown.

+ 1

No way it will burn up.

Remember the space shuttle breakup?

 

[Henning]

+ 1

No way it will burn up.

Remember the space shuttle breakup?

I actually was looking up into the southern sky with my 9 year old nephew that morning watching it as we were getting ready to go to the airport to fly a pipeline run. I got him up a little early so we could watch it. "There it is!" a few seconds later it flared into thousands of pieces of glowing shrapnel.

My nephew asked "would you ever fly on that?" I told him "tomorrow if they asked".

 

[wanttaja]

I vote that the wrench doesn't make it down. Once it streamlines (will actually take a while) it'll have a high ballistic coefficient, so it'll stay at a higher speed and be exposed to the re-entry environment longer.

Plus, there's no mass to absorb and distribute the heat. Bigger things can have the forward sections burn away, but if the structure lasts long enough, the aftmost components survive because they're isolated from the worst heat and the heat path is probably not too good to start with.

In contrast, the wrench is a homogeneous mass with what is actually a fairly small cross-section. All sections of the wrench will heat about the same, and there's little surface area to re-radiate the heat. It'll get hot, it'll soften, and impurities and slight irregularities will concentrate the heat. I'd guess that the area behind the head will probably melt through first. Once it's in multiple pieces, you've got beaucoup surface area exposure and it just melts quicker.

In any case, it wouldn't fit a 9/16" nut anymore....

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Jim Logajan]

I've had the following NEO Press 1969 reprint of a book published in 1884 on my bookshelf for quite a few years. The front and back covers of this particular reprint provide a (in my opinion) wonderfully succinct physical insight into the dynamics of orbit changes.

Here's the explanation from the NEO Press 1969 edition on how to interpret the drawings:

"THE COVER by Craige Schensted shows how the middle orbit in each case is perturbed by a force (indicated by the arrows) acting either along or perpendicular to the radius vector at various points in the orbit. The outer perturbed orbit results when the force force is along one of the arrows; the inner perturbed orbit results when the force is along the other arrow."

 

[gismo]

Orbits are extremely counter-intuitive... but depending on the direction you threw the hammer you would be either increasing or decreasing the altitude of the other side of the orbit and potentially changing its orbital plane. The time it takes for each orbit will change as well. This leads to the potential to have times in the future where the hammer's new orbit will intersect with the ISS again.

All I remember from playing with a NASA-Gemini docking simulator was that in order to "catch up" with the target when it was more than a few tens of meters away, it was necessary to orient the spacecraft "backwards" so you could fire the main engine against your direction of travel and slow down. That made your orbit lower and the orbital period shorter allowing you to close the gap between your spacecraft and the target. Once you got close enough you had to do a 180 flip and fire the main engine to increase your speed so you didn't overshoot. So it was slow down to go faster and vice versa. Fortunately (and for reasons I never completely understood) once you're pretty close you could close in with what seems like "normal" maneuvers.

 

[MAKG1]

If I were on a space walk at the ISS and threw a wrench as hard as I could towards deep space would the wrench travel forever until it hit an asteroid, planet or sun?

Or would earths gravity hold it and eventually pull it back to renter the atmosphere and burn up?

It would fly an elliptical orbit tangent to the direction you threw it (from an earth-stationary perspective). If that intersects the earth, it will reenter. If it doesn't, it will continually orbit the earth, in an orbit only slightly different from the ISS.

From the ISS perspective, if the earth doesn't get in the way (pretty likely it won't, unless you have an amazing arm), it will appear to fly a 2:1 ellipse with about the same period as the ISS, and hit you in the back of the head. Perturbations on circular orbits look like that (it's a rather interesting semistandard exercise for a first year physics grad student).

 

[MAKG1]

I sorta thought more folks would jump on going forever until hitting another object.

Which is the correct answer. There is a reason the space shuttle could never leave earth orbit. You need A LOT of energy to do that.

 

[azure]

I'd put my money on returning to Earth. The ISS orbits within the Roche Radius by quite a bit.

What does the Roche radius (assuming you mean the Roche limit) have to do with anything? The difference between escape velocity and orbital velocity is what matters here. That difference (assuming a circular orbit) is 0.414 times the orbital velocity, which in this case is the speed of the space shuttle. I seriously doubt you could throw a wrench at even 1% of the speed of the space shuttle, much less 41.4%.

The wrench will just settle into a slightly different orbit. Whether lower, higher, or more elongated depends on what direction you throw it.

 

[azure]

Fortunately (and for reasons I never completely understood) once you're pretty close you could close in with what seems like "normal" maneuvers.

That's actually what I would expect, since on a small enough spatial scale the nonuniformity of the Earth's gravity becomes negligible. Close enough to the station, you're in a freely falling reference frame in a (approximately) uniform gravitational field, which is equivalent for mechanical purposes to an inertial frame without gravity.

 

[John Baker]

So.. if you were naked in a vacuum and cut a ...er...had a serous gas attack, would that release enough energy to propel you through that vacuum? Please understand that this is purely a hypothetical situation, I know you could not exist naked in a vacuum.

-John

 

[Henning]

So.. if you were naked in a vacuum and cut a ...er...had a serous gas attack, would that release enough energy to propel you through that vacuum? Please understand that this is purely a hypothetical situation, I know you could not exist naked in a vacuum.

-John

It would move you some, how much would depend on volume, pressure and nozzle size.

 

[denverpilot]

Small, streamlined, case hardened steel, and relatively low speed into the atmosphere I would think it would hit the deck similar in shape and mass as when thrown.

It'll tumble.