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From: peterb@pbear.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: reentry of paper airplanes?
Message-ID: <3000006@pbear.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 14:46:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: pbear.3000006
Posted: Tue May 14 14:46:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 21:30:14 EDT
References: <1631@mordor.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:mordor:-163100:pbear:3000006:000:757
Nf-From: pbear!peterb    May 14 14:46:00 1985



Fred,

If you want to observe it, make it out of steel and use ground radar.
As for needing thousands of MPH difference to inject it into reentry,
look at skylab. It came down on drag alone. I am not implying a shuttle
rentry orbit, just a reentry. A meter per second against the orbit would
cause the airplane to drop into a lower orbit. If you applied about 10G
using a slingshot, I think you could easily acheive reentry insertion,
but the reentry would take quite a number of orbits  until drag from the
atmosphere would pull it in for good.

Anybody out there have the equations handy (I don't have my physics book
at work) I would like to run up a simulation of this. Mail it and comments
to me

Peter Barada
{ihnp4!inmet | harvard!ima}!pbear!peterb