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From: king@kestrel.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.puzzle,net.sci
Subject: A heavy problem (results)
Message-ID: <11162@kestrel.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 11-Aug-86 14:42:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: kestrel.11162
Posted: Mon Aug 11 14:42:47 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Aug-86 01:24:45 EDT
Organization: Kestrel Institute, Palo Alto, CA
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Xref: watmath net.puzzle:1985 net.sci:1500


   From: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)
   Newsgroups: net.puzzle,net.sci
   Date: 1 Aug 86 14:33:40 GMT
   Reply-To: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)


   This is the promised posting of the results of my question, what things
   would tend to be taller and thinner under higher gravity?

   I received several different answers.  I discussed them with a
   physicist at the University of Minnesota to decide which were correct.

I missed the original posting, but I have a response.


Spacecraft would be taller and thinner.  They would be thinner because
they would accomodate the artifacts and later bodies of physically
smaller owners, because tradeoffs between miniaturization and fuel
would more favor miniaturization, and because they would have thicker
air to punch through.  They would be taller because they
would have to be built in more stages, and because the fuel
requirement per kilogram, being exponential in the delta-v (in turn
proportional to the surface gravity times the size of the planet)
grows much faster than the payload shrinks.