| Re: NASA Spacecraft Mark Thirty Years of Flight (Voyager 1 & 2) |
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Group: sci.astro · Group Profile
Author: Jeff FindleyJeff Findley Date: Sep 6, 2007 05:37
>> PIONEERING NASA SPACECRAFT MARK THIRTY YEARS OF FLIGHT
>
> Is zero-thrust coasting 'flight'? It wouldn't be called that if it
> happened here on Earth. Just sayin'.
It is if you're setting a record in a glider or a high altitude balloon.
Flight is pretty much any sustained movement through the atmosphere with the
beginning at the point in time when you leave the ground and the ending at
the point in time when you touch the ground again.
In that sense, spaceflight is sustained movement through space with the
beginning at the point in time when you leave the earth and the ending at
the point in time when you contact any heavenly body (earth, moon, planet,
etc.).
Of course, this is all in my own words, and may not match the "official"
definition of spaceflight, so YMMV.
Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)
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