# The second fastest man made object in history



## MontanaLon (Jul 7, 2020)

My son asked me the other day about alien life so we started discussing it. I told him that in all probability we humans are not the only intelligent life in the universe, the numbers favor it in fact. Just from the sheer number of stars it is likely life also arose in many other places and had even longer to advance than we have had on Earth. But that those same numbers and also the sheet distances involved make it equally unlikely. So we started talking about the closest star besides the sun being 4.5 light years away and how long it would take for even the fastest man made object to get there.

So that lead up to a look for the fastest man made object in history. That turned out to not be the Voyager spacecraft as I thought. That one is currently going about 38,000 miles per hour. The current fastest man made object ever goes to a solar probe which achieved a speed of 158,000 miles per hour. Even then it took 2 years to get to the sun. But the speed record of the fastest man made object before that was from 1957 and remained the record at 150,000 miles per hour (estimated). The record stood for 17 years before Helios solar probe eclipsed it. 

So what was this object? It was a plate of steel armor 4" thick and weighing between 1 and 2 tons. I have come up with varying weights in my further investigation. How did they get it to go so fast? Well, during the nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site one of the bombs was placed at the bottom of a bore hole 500 feet deep. When the bomb was detonated it had far more power than expected and shot fire several hundred feet into the air from the uncovered bore hole as well as spreading some radioactive material into the atmosphere. The scientists were concerned about it enough that they decided to plug the hole for the next test. So they placed a 4" thick, of a weight between 1 and 2 tons, piece of armor plating over the top of the hole and welded into place. There were serious doubts that the plate would work but the scientists were curious enough about it that they placed a high speed camera to capture what happened to the plate when the explosion occurred. 

The cap failed in spectacular fashion. The high speed camera recorded 1 frame of the cap and then it was gone. It was never seen again. Judging by the speed of the camera 1 frame would indicate a speed of at least 150,000 miles per hour. Calculations done before and after the testing indicated the cap could achieve a speed 6 times the escape velocity of Earth's gravity. 

As the plate was never seen again there will always remain the question of what happened to it. There are 2 theories. 1 is it went into space like a "bat out of hell" and continues to this day screaming through the vacuum of space and the other is aerodynamic drag and heating caused the plate to melt and disintegrate before it left the atmosphere. At the speed it was going though it would have traversed the entire atmosphere in less than 1 second and been through the densest part of the atmosphere in about 1/3 of a second. 

I believe this experiment deserves some serious supercomputer time to decide if it actually did make it to space. Why? Because if it did it beat the Russian Sputnik as being the first man made object to get into orbital space by 2 months.


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## Aukai (Jul 7, 2020)

Some of the stuff you learn just by hanging out here....


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## ACHiPo (Jul 7, 2020)

Aukai said:


> Some of the stuff you learn just by hanging out here....


Yeah it's not ALL about getting other people to spend money!


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## RandyWilson (Jul 7, 2020)

So you're saying this cover accelerated faster than a dropped ER32 collet?


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## MrWhoopee (Jul 7, 2020)

Another bit of fascinating trivia to clog my already crowded cranium. Given that the plate was seen intact exiting the hole, the short duration of time in the atmosphere and the thickness of the plate, I vote for blasted into space (with a nice surface glaze) and still travelling. Most likely has left the solar system by now.


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## Aukai (Jul 7, 2020)

Could it have vaporized with the heat traveling behind it, aerodynamics come into mind also. Not doubting the calculations, just going hummmm...


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## MontanaLon (Jul 7, 2020)

Aukai said:


> Could it have vaporized with the heat traveling behind it, aerodynamics come into mind also. Not doubting the calculations, just going hummmm...


I'm thinking not. I'm not sure of the pressure of the air trapped in the bore hole but I know it would have provided some insulating qualities from the shockwave behind it.


MrWhoopee said:


> Another bit of fascinating trivia to clog my already crowded cranium. Given that the plate was seen intact exiting the hole, the short duration of time in the atmosphere and the thickness of the plate, I vote for blasted into space (with a nice surface glaze) and still travelling. Most likely has left the solar system by now.


Well, it was a nighttime test. 10:35pm so that could very well be true. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out the direction it left in and the distance it should have traveled since then. It works out roughly to .00014 light years. At that rate it will reach the closest star to Earth Proxima Centauri in roughly 32,000 years. Assuming it was aimed in that direction. Which proved my point to my son. If the fastest we can get would take 32,000 years to get to the next star. This isn't an 18 month round trip to Mars with a stay on the surface in days. This is, you leave your own planet with everything you need so that in 160,000 generations your offspring could arrive on a world that could very well no longer be there.

You know, unless one of you guys has a flux capacitor sitting in your scrap pile.


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## MontanaLon (Jul 7, 2020)

And it also makes for an interesting metallurgy question. If you hear armor plate to above melting point and then it is immediately in a vacuum how long will it take to cool off? And when it does, will it have austenite, martensite or ferrite properties?


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## SLK001 (Jul 7, 2020)

MontanaLon said:


> Because if it did it beat the Russian Sputnik as being the first man made object to get into orbital space by 2 months.



It probably didn't get into an orbit.  At that speed, it got to space and just kept going.

In 10,000 years, it will crash into an advanced alien space ship.  Their reaction will be, "WHO THE HELL JUST SHOT THAT PLATE AT US???"  FIND OUT AND LOAD THE ION CANNON!"


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## silence dogood (Jul 7, 2020)

To the moon, Alice!


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## silence dogood (Jul 7, 2020)

P.S, Jules Verne published a work in 1865 on a large Coumbiad cannon that shot a projectile with 3 men in it to the moon.


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## matthewsx (Jul 8, 2020)

MontanaLon said:


> I'm thinking not. I'm not sure of the pressure of the air trapped in the bore hole but I know it would have provided some insulating qualities from the shockwave behind it.
> 
> Well, it was a nighttime test. 10:35pm so that could very well be true. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out the direction it left in and the distance it should have traveled since then. It works out roughly to .00014 light years. At that rate it will reach the closest star to Earth Proxima Centauri in roughly 32,000 years. Assuming it was aimed in that direction. Which proved my point to my son. If the fastest we can get would take 32,000 years to get to the next star. This isn't an 18 month round trip to Mars with a stay on the surface in days. This is, you leave your own planet with everything you need so that in 160,000 generations your offspring could arrive on a world that could very well no longer be there.
> 
> You know, unless one of you guys has a flux capacitor sitting in your scrap pile.











						Scientists made a real-life flux capacitor
					

Great Scott!




					futurism.com


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## rwm (Jul 8, 2020)

Very interesting problem. This is apparently somewhat controversial:









						No, a Nuclear Explosion Did Not Launch a Manhole Cover into Space
					

In 1957, the Nevada Test Site saw a series of nuclear explosions that, according to legend, launched a manhole cover into space. Except it probably didn’t. Here’s where the story came from—and why the inadvertent source of the story has been trying to stop its spread for years.




					io9.gizmodo.com
				




Robert


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## markba633csi (Jul 8, 2020)

Seems like if it was travelling much faster than a free-fall object then it would vaporize fairly quick, especially since the atmosphere is the most dense closest to the surface of the earth...
On the other hand, at that velocity perhaps it passed thru the atmosphere so fast it didn't have time to vaporize?   Hmmm
-Mark
PS I'm wondering what the diameter of the plate was?


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## RJSakowski (Jul 8, 2020)

8x escape velocity is just under 300,000 ft/sec.  Once the mass escapes the tube, exterior ballistics takes effect.  There will be a reduction in velocity due to air friction. Unfortunately, exterior ballistics tables don't fral with velocities that high. They don't provide ballistic coeffricients for manhole cover shaped slugs either.

My expectation is that it would not be possible to melt a mass of that size in less than one second.  Thermal conductivity wouldn't permit that rapid an energy transfer.  The outer surface may slough off but the core would remain intact.  

If/when the mass escaped Earth orbit, cooling would be due to radiation losses,  Again, formulae at hand to determine the cooling rate but I'm sure it would reach background temperatures long before reaching another star system.


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## RJSakowski (Jul 8, 2020)

markba633csi said:


> Seems like if it was travelling much faster than a free-fall object then it would vaporize fairly quick, especially since the atmosphere is the most dense closest to the surface of the earth...
> On the other hand, at that velocity perhaps it passed thru the atmosphere so fast it didn't have time to vaporize?   Hmmm
> -Mark
> PS I'm wondering what the diameter of the plate was?


The diameter of the tube was 4 ft and the thickness of the slug was 4".


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## 7milesup (Jul 8, 2020)

I just read about this not too long ago.  I love this forum and how different ideas are floated around.

As a pro pilot for my entire life (well, not entire because I'm not dead yet, lol), it becomes very apparent how thin and fragile the Earth's atmosphere is.  At 18,000 ft, half of the usable atmosphere is below you.  Think about that you are in an airliner at 35,000.  Time of useful consciousness at 41,000 ft were I routinely operated was 15-ish seconds.  

As RJ pointed out, I believe that that plate may have sloughed off some of its outer mass but by then it was well on its way to areas beyond our solar system.


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## rwm (Jul 8, 2020)

Just to head further off course...if you were decompressed in an airliner you would not even feel short of breath before passing out. Low oxygen does not make humans have air hunger. Air hunger is caused by falling blood pH (acidic) which it usually related to rising CO2 levels. 
I have tested this by breathing a bag of argon from my TIG torch. You feel perfectly fine and then you just black out. (Disclaimer- very dangerous do not try this!) Alternatively you could breath from a bag of 50% CO2. (Also very dangerous) You will immediately feel like you are going to die and start hyperventilating like you just ran 100 yards (meters.) 
Unfortunately, these kind of events sometimes happen in industry when  workers clean tanks. They may enter a tank of nitrogen or some other inert gas with no oxygen available. They proceed to pass out and die without feeling any air hunger or symptoms. 
Robert


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## 7milesup (Jul 8, 2020)

Hypoxia is what you are referring to RWM.  I actually went through a hypoxia simulation event sponsored by Mayo Clinic.  They had us perform normal cockpit duties (in a simulator) while breathing a mixture of gasses to simulate lack of oxygen.  Everyone responds differently.  My response was it felt that the upper lobes of my lungs were hot.  But the scary part is you also have a sense of euphoria and therefore the onset of hypoxia is insidious.  The crew of Payne Stewart found that out.


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## rwm (Jul 8, 2020)

I wonder what gas mixture they gave you? True hypoxemia would be dangerous unless all the participants were young and healthy.
Robert


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## Janderso (Jul 8, 2020)

You guys remember when the Hubble aimed it’s lens at a point in the universe. The visual is you pointing a straw and look through it.
The image over a period required to show hundreds of galaxies similar to our own Milky Way swirl. This image is just now reaching us at a distance light travels over ten billion years.
When I think of this image and what it represents, It makes my complaint about a few weeds in the lawn or that part I just over cut by .001” seem insignificant some how.
I grew up in the sixties, what can I say.
I love everything space related.
It blows my mind.


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## MontanaLon (Jul 9, 2020)

rwm said:


> Just to head further off course...if you were decompressed in an airliner you would not even feel short of breath before passing out. Low oxygen does not make humans have air hunger. Air hunger is caused by falling blood pH (acidic) which it usually related to rising CO2 levels.
> I have tested this by breathing a bag of argon from my TIG torch. You feel perfectly fine and then you just black out. (Disclaimer- very dangerous do not try this!) Alternatively you could breath from a bag of 50% CO2. (Also very dangerous) You will immediately feel like you are going to die and start hyperventilating like you just ran 100 yards (meters.)
> Unfortunately, these kind of events sometimes happen in industry when  workers clean tanks. They may enter a tank of nitrogen or some other inert gas with no oxygen available. They proceed to pass out and die without feeling any air hunger or symptoms.
> Robert


It is freaking amazing how fast you pass out too. 10-15 seconds or so and it is lights out. Thus why they tell you when the oxygen masks drop from the ceiling of the plane to put it on no questions asked and do your own first then anyone else who didn't listen to the safety briefing can be helped. Way back in the day, we had a guy doing a tank entry. The tank had been opened and vented but it was hot and the fuel left in the tank had vaporized and displaced the oxygen. Everything was good until his SCBA failed and he got no air from it. He pulled it off, turned around hollered he was coming out and took 2 steps and went down. The backup went in and pulled him out or he and probably others would have died trying to get him out.


7milesup said:


> Hypoxia is what you are referring to RWM.  I actually went through a hypoxia simulation event sponsored by Mayo Clinic.  They had us perform normal cockpit duties (in a simulator) while breathing a mixture of gasses to simulate lack of oxygen.  Everyone responds differently.  My response was it felt that the upper lobes of my lungs were hot.  But the scary part is you also have a sense of euphoria and therefore the onset of hypoxia is insidious.  The crew of Payne Stewart found that out.


Diving is the same way only backwards. Nitrogen will make you loopy when it is under pressure and air is mostly nitrogen. And then below a certain depth the pressure makes the oxygen toxic. I never did get into any of the mixed gas stuff but did spend some time around the saturation divers breathing helium and oxygen. Everyone had to take a hit of it for the Donald Duck voice but that was as far as I got into it. Did get to do a cycle in the decompression chamber down to depth of 180 feet and then back up to see what it was like.

And then on the fire dept in training you go until the mask sucks to your face when you inhale with everyone watching of course. Just to see what it is like.


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## pontiac428 (Jul 9, 2020)

Last year I was investigating a situation where two workers passed out from H2S exposure in a confined space.  I know H2S, its chemistry, and its hazards, but I had never experienced unconsciousness from it.  I expected it to be a slow onset.  I was taking measurements near the opening and dropped to my hands and knees in an instant.  Turns out I was breathing about 150 PPM of the gas, which is 5x higher than what is considered immediately dangerous to life and health.  I didn't taste it, I didn't feel it, I was just dropped!  Be careful out there.


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## Winegrower (Jul 9, 2020)

I believe the plate will turn up in somebody's back yard in Tonopah.


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## brino (Jul 9, 2020)

perhaps it already did?

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attracti...Crater_Back_Country_Byway-Tonopah_Nevada.html


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## rwm (Jul 9, 2020)

Statistically it would land in the water and would not be detected!
Robert


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## Dhal22 (Jul 9, 2020)

7milesup said:


> Hypoxia is what you are referring to RWM.  I actually went through a hypoxia simulation event sponsored by Mayo Clinic.  They had us perform normal cockpit duties (in a simulator) while breathing a mixture of gasses to simulate lack of oxygen.  Everyone responds differently.  My response was it felt that the upper lobes of my lungs were hot.  But the scary part is you also have a sense of euphoria and therefore the onset of hypoxia is insidious.  The crew of Payne Stewart found that out.




I knew Payne Stewart would come up in this conversation......


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