To: Fighting Irish
Article from
Snopes. Enjoy :).
...Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see above) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload (not even counting the weight of the sleigh) - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.
21 posted on
12/24/2003 8:16:46 PM PST by
Ex-Dem
(>>>--------------->)
To: Ex-Dem
this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.This is what My eyes read the first time.
62 posted on
12/24/2003 8:51:03 PM PST by
ChefKeith
(NASCAR...everything else is just a game!)
To: Ex-Dem
Good thing they're magical reindeer then, eh?
108 posted on
12/24/2003 11:28:40 PM PST by
Tennessee_Bob
(LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?)
To: Ex-Dem
So.....you're saying he's not real??
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