October 27, 2007

• terminal velocity question

  Hmm...  I started writing my novel, and I thought up an interesting question in doing some of the creative background...

  Here's my question:
  "Regarding terminal velocity, for the same object of the same mass (say the mass and shape of a human being), within the range of hypothetical Earth-like planets with survivable air pressures (and therefore, I'm supposing, the same range of air density and temperature) and survivable gravitational constants, how much (roughly) can the terminal velocity for that range of hypothetical worlds vary?  Presumably you can have a very high terminal velocity in a world with low air pressure/density and high gravity, but then the higher the gravity, the more the air pressure generally will be, right?  Of course, granted that an object doesn't burn up from the friction caused by higher air pressure and gravity."

  This is from Nasa:  http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/termv.html

  

  from this website:  http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml
  Terminal Velocity for a skydiver on earth is roughly 56m/s (200km/h)...  this site has 120km/h-200km/h 53-56m/s up to even 76m/s (273.6km/h).

  • 12:54 am
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