Pie In The Sky

[K12beano]

Where is everyone?

I cannot find appropriate comment about Wigan's Finest Science:

http://www.wishfm.net/news/local/wiganers-to-launc...

[Eric Mc]

One Small Step for man
One giant leap for Ginsters

[Dogwatch]

A fast descent using the foil as a heat shield should result in a freshly baked pie retuning to earth....

On the Beeb as I type. Apparently it was meat and potato and landed 50 miles from the launch point. Just hope it didn't land in something unpleasant.

[jmorgan]

Eric Mc said:

One Small Step for man
One giant leap for Ginsters

What? They make pies?


Maybe they wanted to get it over a rainbow to weigh it.

[Eric Mc]

To be honest, it's hard to be sure exactly what Ginsters products actually are.

[Eric Mc]

Dogwatch said:

A fast descent using the foil as a heat shield should result in a freshly baked pie retuning to earth....

On the Beeb as I type. Apparently it was meat and potato and landed 50 miles from the launch point. Just hope it didn't land in something unpleasant.

It wasn't at orbital speed so the descent would be only at 100 mph or so - max. Not likely to cook your pie or even reheat it.

[K12beano]

Eric Mc said:

To be honest, it's hard to be sure exactly what Ginsters products actually are.

I think it's generally understood they've traversed a Stargate....


We do need to know how Pistonheaders will cope in Space in five years time. Indeed, how will deep fried Mars bars fare on Mars??

[Eric Mc]

That'll be only worth finding out if they plan to send any Glaswegians to Mars.

[annodomini2]

Eric Mc said:

Dogwatch said:

A fast descent using the foil as a heat shield should result in a freshly baked pie retuning to earth....

On the Beeb as I type. Apparently it was meat and potato and landed 50 miles from the launch point. Just hope it didn't land in something unpleasant.

It wasn't at orbital speed so the descent would be only at 100 mph or so - max. Not likely to cook your pie or even reheat it.

It could be supersonic in the upper atmosphere depending on the drag of various components.

Would be slower closer to the surface due to increasing drag.

[Eric Mc]

Well short of "burning up" velocities - or even warming slightly.

[daveake]

ash73 said:

Was it a raspberry pi?

As it happens, it did have a Raspberry Pi plus GPS/radio board so it could be tracked on the ground.

And yes the tracking device is called "Pi In The Sky"

It wasn't my flight, but I wrote the Pi tracking software.

Dave

[daveake]

Eric Mc said:

It wasn't at orbital speed so the descent would be only at 100 mph or so - max. Not likely to cook your pie or even reheat it.

Yeah, depending on burst altitude etc these things normally hit 100-200mph after a few seconds, but that soon reduces as the parachute starts to work and the air gets more dense.

Dave

[Eric Mc]

People often think that because an object has achieved an altitude that exceeds the sensible atmosphere, that it must get hot re-entering the atmosphere.

They don't seem to understand that re-entry heating is mainly a function of speed, not altitude.

[daveake]

ash73 said:

How cool is that! You should post up some more details, I'm sure people would love to read it. I certainly would.

Loads of stuff at my blog http://www.daveakerman.com/

As it happens, I started in this hobby after reading a post on pistonheads - see my original thread here.

Dave

[Gandahar]

Eric Mc said:

People often think that because an object has achieved an altitude that exceeds the sensible atmosphere, that it must get hot re-entering the atmosphere.

They don't seem to understand that re-entry heating is mainly a function of speed, not altitude.

Also time spent as well. Using the earths atmosphere as a brake means you spend quite a long time using that atmosphere at high speeds. Especially if you are gliding with wings.

[Eric Mc]

Good point. The Space Shuttle spent a lot longer in its high heat zone compared to an Apollo coming back from the moon. The re-entry radio blackout withe Shuttle was around fifteen minutes. For Apollo it was around five.

[Gandahar]

Eric Mc said:

Good point. The Space Shuttle spent a lot longer in its high heat zone compared to an Apollo coming back from the moon. The re-entry radio blackout withe Shuttle was around fifteen minutes. For Apollo it was around five.

As an aside Joe Engle is the only guy to fly two winged vehicles in space, Bell X-15 and Shuttle STS-2.

On STS-2

"Engle manually flew the re-entry from Mach 24 throughout the entire approach and landing – the only shuttle pilot to have done so – so as to test the limits of the shuttle's stability and controls"

Fantastic pilot at high altitude I think it can be summarised.

[Gandahar]

Getting back to the more meaty conversation of spacepies I wonder if this will mean some sort of latter day space race between Wigan and Melton Mowbray?

I heard that some of the Mowbray pork pie candidates have the right stuffing?


Meanwhile have you seen the Vango tent in space?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeJMropTJWY

Well worth the 30 min watch.

[CanAm]

The pie was only sent to about 100,000 ft on a weather balloon according to the article, so hardly likely to burn up on "re-entry" to the atmosphere it never left.
Alan Euston parachuted from 135,000 ft. I get vertigo on a step-ladder.

[Eric Mc]

Even if it left the atmosphere and fell back it wouldn't burn up.

In the late 1940s, the US launched rockets up to altitudes of around 400 miles (higher than the space station orbits now) which fell back without burning up.