- x(t) = R cos(
t)
y(t) = R sin(
t)
Background:
This technical report is an addendum to the Far Reaches Orbiting Station Technologies Incident Review Board dossier on policy violation #1545. The violation involves FROST employee Spiff, Spaceman Second Class.
Spiff was recently transferred to the new FROST weather control satellite in stable orbit around Planet X, the third planet of the Alpha Beta Lainbda Kappa Mu system. Prior to his departure from Earth, Spaceman Spiff was issued the standard set of duty orders for deep space officers of FROST. His duties included observation and control of weather patterns on Planet X and periodic maintenance of equipment aboard the station.
At approximately 22:50 EST on 22:08:2095CE the station's close-proximity sensor log shows clearly that a metallic object was ejected from the docking ring. Spaceman Spiff s personal log, opened under FROST directive #IA6F73, shows that he "tossed an empty over the side for old times' sake." Further analysis of the sensor log and interviews with Spaceman Spiff confirm that the object was an aluminum polycarbide beer can.
The rest of this report documents the findings of the FROST technical review team assigned to this case.
As the technical review team assigned to this case, we examined several aspects of the situation described in FROST Case Number IA6F73. Several other intemal organizations have contributed to this report. All employees involved have signed the related confidentiality forms.
1 Space Station
1.1 Orbit of the station
1.2 Velocity vector of the station
1.3 Speed of the station
1.4 Acceleration of the station
- Orientation
of the acceleration vector
- The
constant G for theoretical acceleration
2 Beer Can
2.1 Beer can's approximate location immediately
after being ejected
2.2 Speed of the can as a function of time
2.3 Direction in which the can was thrown
2.4 Long term behavior of the beer can
- How
close the can gets to the planet
- How
close the can gets to the planet's atmosphere
2.5 Can's position from 20 to 100 minutes
after ejection
- How
close does the can get to Spaceman Spiff during this interval
- Location
of Spiff and the beer can when this occurs
2.6 Apparent motion of the can from Spaceman
Spiff s point of view
2.7 Comparison of the can's acceleration with
theoretical acceleration
t)
t)=
0.001139905 radians/sec
1.2 Velocity vector of the station
The velocity vector of the space station, v(t), can be
found symbolically as follows (noting that the x and y components
of the vector v(t) are the derivatives of the x and
y components of the vector r(t)):
sin(t)
, R
cos(t)
)[Prof. Janeba speaking now: This is just too hard to convert into a web document. You get the general idea, but if you want to see more, you can see the original scanned pages from the links below. The scanning is almost clearly readable. Students' names have been erased from the scanned pages for privacy reasons.]
[Note: This project was much harder than introductory projects. This particular report's grade was "A".]
willamette.edu