Is it possible that the atmosphere is losing less of its "shield" capabilities due to more and more jets/rockets puncturing it daily?

[Space Lynx]

Just wondering what the science is on this, if this tiny object can make it through the atmosphere and not get burned up, is it possible scientists miscalculated something?

Or is it just this object was made of something that made it like prevent from burning up? Why would ISS use items that use this though when they know the dangers of it falling?

Junk from the ISS fell on a house in the U.S., NASA confirms | Digital Trends

NASA has confirmed that a metal object that fell on a house in Florida last month was from the International Space Station.

www.digitaltrends.com

 

[ir_cow]

Size, speed and angle of descent is the key. Material too I guess, but even a piece of wood could make it if going slow enough.

 

[tabascosauz]

Inconel? damn that stuff is no joke

 

[Space Lynx]

Size, speed and angle of descent is the key. Material too I guess, but even a piece of wood could make it if going slow enough.

so the escalator/ladder sci-fi dream is possible? I had no idea. that's amazing. we should just build a ladder to the moon. just go extra slow through the atmosphere... I had no idea you could bypass the "shield" in this way. heh. interesting.

 

[joemama]

Stuff burning when entering the atmosphere results from the heat generated by the compression of air and friction, since we aren't losing our atmosphere, I don't think we are losing any protection.

 

[Space Lynx]

AI vs my question of the day: long story short, I still don't have an answer, why is steel used to make rocket ships like Starship, but not Inconel? I guess its just not needed is my takeaway.

however this does answer my original question, Inconel, the item that fell from ISS, can resist insanely high temps. neat. I wonder why ISS uses this though if they know it can fall to Earth and hit people lol


Inconel and stainless steel are both remarkable materials, but their specific properties make them suitable for different applications in rocketry. Let’s delve into the reasons behind their usage:

1. Stainless Steel:
   • Advantages:
     • Cost-Effective: Stainless steel is relatively inexpensive compared to specialized alloys.
     • High Thermal Conductivity: It efficiently dissipates heat.
     • Corrosion Resistance: Stainless steel resists rust and oxidation.
   • Challenges:
     • Strength: Stainless steel has lower tensile and yield strength compared to alloys like Inconel 718.
     • Temperature Limitations: At extremely high temperatures, stainless steel may lose strength and become less reliable.
   • Application:
     • SpaceX’s Starship: Elon Musk’s decision to use stainless steel for the Starship is groundbreaking. Its cost-effectiveness and ease of manufacturing are key factors.
2. Inconel:
   • Advantages:
     • High-Temperature Performance: Inconel excels at elevated temperatures.
     • Oxidation and Corrosion Resistance: It withstands aggressive environments.
     • Creep Resistance: Ideal for sustained high-temperature applications.
   • Challenges:
     • Cost: Inconel is expensive.
     • Density: It’s denser than stainless steel.
   • Application:
     • Rocket Engines: Inconel 718 is commonly used in rocket nozzles and combustion chambers due to its robustness under extreme conditions 1.

In summary, while stainless steel offers advantages in terms of cost and thermal conductivity, Inconel’s superior high-temperature performance makes it a preferred choice for critical components in rocket engines. Each material serves a specific purpose, balancing trade-offs between strength, cost, and temperature resistance

 

[Lew Zealand]

The atmosphere isn't a shield. Loads of things make it to the ground and it depends on many things including (as already mentioned) speed, angle, density, material type, probably other things. Rockets and jets are not 'puncturing' it at all as far more debris from space is raining down on the atmosphere all day every day for the last 4+ billion years compared to the few, slow entries and exits that the occasional rocket does.

If you're thinking "shield" you may instead wish to consider why Mars doesn't have much of an atmosphere or why the Moon has effectively none. That's because the Earth has a very good shield in the form of it's magnetic field, which Mars' is almost absent and the Moon's is long gone. It's the atmosphere itself which needs the shield from the Sun's solar wind. Without it the atmosphere will slowly be stripped away to nothing as it's scraped off bit by bit from the outside by the solar wind. Internal dynamos consisting of charged particles are a wonderful thing.

so the escalator/ladder sci-fi dream is possible? I had no idea. that's amazing. we should just build a ladder to the moon. just go extra slow through the atmosphere... I had no idea you could bypass the "shield" in this way. heh. interesting.

I've always been suspicious of the space elevator as it's passing through weather and that should (in my mind) completely invalidate the seemingly delicate balance for them to work. I'd love to see an analysis of how this is taken into account.

 

[Space Lynx]

That makes sense yeah, I guess I was just thrown off as to how this was even possible to begin with regarding the ISS. I had no idea it could actually cause deaths on the ground. I feel like they should make those parts out of steel maybe? So it burns up on re-entry, and doesn't you know, smash into someone's house

might need replaced more often, but that's the price of science I suspect

 

[Lew Zealand]

That makes sense yeah, I guess I was just thrown off as to how this was even possible to begin with regarding the ISS. I had no idea it could actually cause deaths on the ground. I feel like they should make those parts out of steel maybe? So it burns up on re-entry, and doesn't you know, smash into someone's house

might need replaced more often, but that's the price of science I suspect

There was almost zero thought given to recovering or accounting for space debris hitting the ground until the past few years and likely there's nothing binding because of course space is a multinational endeavor. However the EU is proposing (maybe already has) some new rules about accounting for deorbiting first and second rocket stages and other "consumables" but I haven't kept up to see whether these are just recommendations or approaching the "rule" stage yet.

 

[Space Lynx]

There was almost zero thought given to recovering or accounting for space debris hitting the ground until the past few years and likely there's nothing binding because of course space is a multinational endeavor. However the EU is proposing (maybe already has) some new rules about accounting for deorbiting first and second rocket stages and other "consumables" but I haven't kept up to see whether these are just recommendations or approaching the "rule" stage yet.

that really surprises me, my high school woodshop projects made sure I had thought everything through on things, I assumed NASA would be held to the same standards lol ffs

 

[joemama]

It's unlikely that they haven't considered the debris could hit someone, but probably the chance of it hitting someone is so low compared the cost to prevent it.

 

[Garyfrankfort]

Just wondering what the science is on this, if this tiny object can make it through the atmosphere and not get burned up, is it possible scientists miscalculated something?

Or is it just this object was made of something that made it like prevent from burning up? Why would ISS use items that use this though when they know the dangers of it falling?

Junk from the ISS fell on a house in the U.S., NASA confirms | Digital Trends

NASA has confirmed that a metal object that fell on a house in Florida last month was from the International Space Station.

www.digitaltrends.com

I think this was just an unfortunate situation, and we shouldn't stress about this. I don't think the government is so stupid that it will destroy the atmosphere or something

 

[Space Lynx]

I think this was just an unfortunate situation, and we shouldn't stress about this. I don't think the government is so stupid that it will destroy the atmosphere or something

I think you would be surprised to find how incompetent they actually are, for example the library system at the presidential level doesn't even have a catalog system. Your local library has a better way of keeping track of documents, etc.

Also, USA is 42 trillion in debt now, with 30+ years of unpaid wars. It will collapse eventually. The Treasury Secretary said inflation was going to go away after 6 months when it first started, I remember laughing and saying nope, he miscalculated... and well fast forward to today... and yep he miscalculated. lol how these guys make six figures is beyond me, but hey what do I know.

 

[R-T-B]

Just wondering what the science is on this, if this tiny object can make it through the atmosphere and not get burned up, is it possible scientists miscalculated something?

Or is it just this object was made of something that made it like prevent from burning up? Why would ISS use items that use this though when they know the dangers of it falling?

Junk from the ISS fell on a house in the U.S., NASA confirms | Digital Trends

NASA has confirmed that a metal object that fell on a house in Florida last month was from the International Space Station.

www.digitaltrends.com

Unlikely. Way more things puncture it daily than manmade objects, we are a drop in the bucket there.

There may be a material argument, but some asteroids/comets/meteors are also solid some very unfriendly metals, so not sure I'd buy into that.

The atmosphere isn't a shield. Loads of things make it to the ground

I mean it sorta is. Lots of things don't make it too. The moon though is probably more of a shield than the athosphere honestly. It sucks a lot into its interesting gravity dance.

 

[Space Lynx]

Unlikely. Way more things puncture it daily than manmade objects, we are a drop in the bucket there.

There may be a material argument, but some asteroids/comets/meteors are also solid some very unfriendly metals, so not sure I'd buy into that.

Could be a difference in punctures from inside out, where as meteors/asteroids are outside in. There are some things in physics that act kind of funny when the reverse happens, that being said this thread should really be locked, cause I agree with all of you... so... not sure why still getting posts here, just was something to think about was all.

 

[R-T-B]

Could be a difference in punctures from inside out, where as meteors/asteroids are outside in. There are some things in physics that act kind of funny when the reverse happens, that being said this thread should really be locked, cause I agree with all of you... so... not sure why still getting posts here, just was something to think about was all.

I suppose there could theoretically be, but without knowing more, I'm about as confident in that as "there theoretically could be a yeti in the Himalayas"

My astronomy background is mostly in n-body math for the Kopernicus project in KSP, I don't know much about atmospheric interference honestly.

Could be a difference in punctures from inside out, where as meteors/asteroids are outside in. There are some things in physics that act kind of funny when the reverse happens, that being said this thread should really be locked, cause I agree with all of you... so... not sure why still getting posts here, just was something to think about was all.

Something to think about is never a bad thing!

 

[Lew Zealand]

I mean it sorta is. Lots of things don't make it too. The moon though is probably more of a shield than the athosphere honestly. It sucks a lot into its interesting gravity dance.

This is one of those things I wish I could see some math about. And in a bigger "unfortunately", math I could understand. Jupiter is frequently referred to shielding the inner solar system with its gravity in a similar fashion, but I always think of gravity deflecting an object in a random direction could just as well deflect something directly towards us.

But thinking of it in a static manner, if you put 2 large but different size masses in a field of very small objects (VSOs), you would except the larger mass's gravity to attract more things to it as its sphere of influence is larger. So over time the smaller of the 2 masses will be impacted by fewer VSOs than if there was an equal size or even missing second object there.

Awright maybe I answered it myself as I assume changing the VSOs (and large objects) to be orbiting in a system instead of static complicates the object tracking but doesn't materially change the effect of their gravity.

 

[AusWolf]

Just wondering what the science is on this, if this tiny object can make it through the atmosphere and not get burned up, is it possible scientists miscalculated something?

Or is it just this object was made of something that made it like prevent from burning up? Why would ISS use items that use this though when they know the dangers of it falling?

Junk from the ISS fell on a house in the U.S., NASA confirms | Digital Trends

NASA has confirmed that a metal object that fell on a house in Florida last month was from the International Space Station.

www.digitaltrends.com

Objects entering the atmosphere burn up because of the heat resulting from the friction with the atmosphere. If the object is massive enough, it naturally won't have time to completely burn away before hitting the ground. It has nothing to do with any "shield capability" the atmosphere has.

Edit: It also depends on the entry angle of the object. If it is steep enough, it is possible for smaller objects not to burn up completely.

 

[Space Lynx]

Objects entering the atmosphere burn up because of the heat resulting from the friction with the atmosphere. If the object is massive enough, it naturally won't have time to completely burn away before hitting the ground. It has nothing to do with any "shield capability" the atmosphere has.

Edit: It also depends on the entry angle of the object. If it is steep enough, it is possible for smaller objects not to burn up completely.

yep... it was a metaphor...

 

[windwhirl]

so the escalator/ladder sci-fi dream is possible?

As in an elevator/rope of some kind that goes all the way from the ground to, say, 400 km up in the air (or whatever distance you want) to some station or whatever that high up? I believe it was considered impossible or at least out of reach with current and near future technology due to weather elements (wind, rain, storms, etc.) disturbing it (plus the small chance of a piece of space junk traveling at hyper sonic speeds, hitting it like a missile and ruining it) and the materials' own properties being a factor (basically, it would be ripped apart due to too much strain or pulled back down by Earth's gravity for being too heavy, or maybe both things at the same time).

Example: A 1 cm thick (less than a half-inch), 400 kilometers long (Around 250 miles) aluminum cable would be almost 85 tons. Either it gets ripped apart because a given section of the cable wouldn't tolerate the strain of holding itself together, or gets pulled back down. I picked aluminum because it's the lightest metal that they have in this calculator, btw, I'm not sure aluminum could handle the strain anyway.

Thickening the cable has another problem: weight goes up fast. A foot-thick aluminum cable would be 315212 tons. You will have trouble getting that much of aluminum or whatever hypothetical material you'd want to use that could handle the strain. And that's definitely getting pulled back down to Earth fast (the ISS is just 500 tons, orbits at around 400-420 kilometers above the Earth and has an orbital decay of 2 kilometers per month, which is solved by periodically boosting the station's orbit, which according to wikipedia costs 7.5 tons of chemical fuel per year), if you don't have the rocket technology to carry so many tons around in a short time and set the whole thing up quickly enough, or if you don't bother boosting it often enough (not sure it's feasible either due to scale or just sheer fucking money it would cost)

So, definitely not happening soon unless some revolutionary engineering techniques and materials are developed.

 

[Nuckles56]

Size, speed and angle of descent is the key. Material too I guess, but even a piece of wood could make it if going slow enough.

Considering some of the early heat shields used by space craft were made of wood, that is definitely possible.

 

[oobymach]

CFC's do more harm than a rocket launch. They dissipate upper atmosphere, there was a big hole in ozone from it in the 90's.

 

[R-T-B]

CFC's do more harm than a rocket launch. They dissipate upper atmosphere, there was a big hole in ozone from it in the 90's.

It's still there actually, but because the globe got its ass together for once, its healing.

 

[ir_cow]

It's still there actually, but because the globe got its ass together for once, its healing.

Australians get extra UV and it makes them stronger to fend off the unnatural predators.

 

[R-T-B]

Australians get extra UV and it makes them stronger to fend off the unnatural predators.

That explains Mussels.