Based on my posts so far it would seem that I am a very serious man… well I suppose I am a bit pensive. But no matter how serious I am about the news, the news can be the most hilarious thing.
Scientists aim for origami space flight. Yes folks, a paper plane shall go into space. That was the headline I saw in Yahoo! News. At first I thought this was such a loony idea. So did the scientist… at least initially. The article goes on to explain the scientific foundation of sending a paper plane into space.
Surely, I thought, that this paper plane has no chance of getting back into earth as it would burn up upon entry. If a space shuttle can burn entering the Earth’s atmosphere, sure a paper plane will disintegrate faster than you can say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Apparently, I was wrong. According to the scientist who thought about it, if the entry of the paper plane is slow enough then maybe it will not get incinerated.
This is making me think… hard….making me recall all I could about physics…. I love it. Don’t you just love it when an article stimulates your brain so much you can’t sleep until you’ve figured it out. Yes, I AM A NERD! And proud of it. I am not saying however that the scientist is wrong. I bet he spent enough sleepless nights thinking about this. Nevertheless, you can only appreciate his work if you too could understand the workings of his idea. And having spent some time thinking, yes his idea is sound.
The heat during re-entry is caused by the speed in which gas compresses which is the effect of the mass and the speed in which the shuttle enters the Earth’s atmosphere. With a paper plane, mass is not that much of an issue and the speed in which it enters will be definitely slower than that of the shuttle. The paper plane becomes the perfect glider that the shuttle is supposed to be in the first place. With the slowness in which the paper plane enters the earth the heat caused by compression will hardly affect it.
In a simulation of the plane’s re-entry, the plane has survived with hardly any burns. I now look forward to the actual launch of the paper plane into space. I do not doubt it will be one significant event in scientific history.
