Editing 1701: Speed and Danger
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 8: | Line 8: | ||
==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
+ | {{incomplete|More on the speed of sport cars and the race cars. How much faster does it feel for a human to see a regular sports car on a high way and then a formula one car. More on why a rocket seems slow?}} | ||
− | In this {{w|scatter plot}} [[Randall]] plots the speed of several vehicles (including people on foot for "normal sports") and how disastrous a crash would be. The punchline is that space {{w|rocket}}s travel so dangerously fast, and crashes are so utterly catastrophic, that it pushes literally every other kind of crash to the "slow and safe" corner by comparison. | + | In this {{w|scatter plot}} [[Randall]] plots the speed of several vehicles (including people on foot for "normal sports") and how disastrous a crash would be. The punchline is that space {{w|rocket}}s travel so dangerously fast, and crashes are so utterly catastrophic, that it pushes literally every other kind of crash to the "slow and safe" corner by comparison. This is exactly the same that would have happened if he had put in the coconut in one of the first scatter plot comics [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], but there it was only mentioned in the title text. It would have been so far down the left, that all other fruits would have been pushed to the far right, just like here, where the launch moves crashing while running close to crashing while driving a race car on both axis. But since Randall will not delegate rockets to the title text it had to be included. |
− | With the plot Randall makes the observation that the danger of a crash is greatly influenced by its speed and highlights the concept of relativity between what we perceive as | + | With the plot Randall makes the observation that the danger of a crash is greatly influenced by its speed and highlights the concept of relativity between what we perceive as 'fast', normal sports and two different types of racing cars, vs. a much faster vehicle, a rocket during launch. A rocket may appear to ascend slowly (and of course it begins its ascent slowly), but on the way to orbit it ends up moving very fast. But before it reaches the more extreme speed regime it will be far away from the ground (and the casual observer), where there is nothing to compare this speed to as opposed to a race car speeding by a spectator during a race. (Of course rockets are slow compared to the speed of light...) |
− | Apart from the high speed, there is also the altitude to take into account for | + | Apart from the high speed, there is also the altitude to take into account for the rocket launch, and the vast amount of fuel needed to get into orbit, and any sort of failure is almost certainly fatal. |
Racing cars are often involved in crashes, but at that speed it is possible to construct them so even serious crashes may not be fatal. Although rockets are also made as safe as possible, it is a completely different regime of ''speed and danger'', and the risk of something going wrong during a take off is much higher,{{Actual citation needed}} and it is impossible to prevent a lethal disaster if the launch fails during the ascent. This results in a much higher mortality rate for each crashed rocket (probably 100%) vs. crashed sports/race cars. | Racing cars are often involved in crashes, but at that speed it is possible to construct them so even serious crashes may not be fatal. Although rockets are also made as safe as possible, it is a completely different regime of ''speed and danger'', and the risk of something going wrong during a take off is much higher,{{Actual citation needed}} and it is impossible to prevent a lethal disaster if the launch fails during the ascent. This results in a much higher mortality rate for each crashed rocket (probably 100%) vs. crashed sports/race cars. | ||
− | Rocket launches | + | Rocket launches is compared to "normal {{w|sports}}" (presumably meaning people running approximately 15 mph, and possibly also {{w|polo}} {{w|horse}}s galloping approximately 25 mph), {{w|NASCAR}} (which reaches speeds of 320 km/h (200 mph)), and {{w|Formula One}}, where the fastest race cars go 380 km/h (240 mph). |
− | A | + | A rockets launched to reach the {{w|ISS}} needs to eventually match the speed of the space station which moves at 27,600 km/h (17,100 mph). A rocket that needs to {{w|Escape velocity|escape}} from Earth needs to reach 40,270 km/h (25,020 mph), but so far no humans have escaped, but the astronauts going to the Moon came close, with {{w|Apollo 10}} setting the {{w|List_of_spaceflight_records#Fastest|speed record}} for manned flights with 39,896 km/h (24,790 mph). The lowest of these speeds divided by the highest for the race cars is still more than 70 times as fast... |
− | The title text serves to emphasize the point | + | The title text serves to further emphasize the point, as an astronaut (used to the several G's of acceleration during takeoff and overall much higher speeds) would likely find a NASCAR car moving at ~200mph paltry compared to what they're acclimated to and has supposedly aggravated NASCAR drivers by making a point of saying so. And thus this is used to explain why there is no passenger seats in NASCARS, to prevent astronauts in joining the drivers for a nice slow ride. |
− | Of the many [[:Category:Charts|charts in xkcd]] this one is notable for containing the fewest | + | Of the many [[:Category:Charts|charts in xkcd]] this one is notable for containing the fewest samples of point of any [[:Category:Scatter plots|scatter plots]] in xkcd. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
Line 43: | Line 44: | ||
{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} | ||
+ | |||
[[Category:Scatter plots]] | [[Category:Scatter plots]] | ||
[[Category:Sport]] | [[Category:Sport]] | ||
[[Category:Space]] | [[Category:Space]] |