Specs on Santa's Sleigh from ASO.com

ready2fly

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Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

Everything you ever wanted to know about Santa's Sleigh here

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Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!!!!

From:

The R2F's!
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Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

Hey, does anybody have that engineering analysis of Santa Clause and his sleigh. It talks about how fast he'd have to travel, the accelleration, air friction, and other things. Quite funny.
Please post if you have a copy.
 
Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

I wish I still had a copy of that. My physics teacher handed it out right before a test, and I couldn't stop laughing until the test was over.
 
Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help from that renown scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I am pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about. .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that 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.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 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 point #1) 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.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion -
If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The version I had figured in a little extra at the end. It said that this all makes perfect sense, except that there is a possibility that Santa still does exist. There are only two or three real "saints" a year, and with equal spacing, Santa's sleigh could ride a long at a mere mach 1.0. Assuming this is true, Santa could even make it home early on Christmas Eve for some hot cocoa!
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Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

is this it?

[ QUOTE ]
Santa Claus: An Engineering Analysis
No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 specices of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under 18). But since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload by 85% of the total -leaving 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child per house.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000 th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc.
That means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, move at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, at tops 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more then a medium sized lego set ( 2 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 the 'flying reindeer' can pull TEN TIMES that normal amount, we cannot the job with eight, or even nine, We need 214,200 reindeer. This increased 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 travelling at 650 miles per second creates enourmous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized with 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa ( which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a 4,315,015 pound force.


[/ QUOTE ] or [ QUOTE ]
The Physics of Santa
No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 specices of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under 18). But since Santa doesn't appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload by 85% of the total, leaving 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child per house. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west, which seems logical. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say, for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept, we are now talking about .78 miles per household: a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. That means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, move at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, at tops, 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more then a medium sized lego set (2 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 the "flying reindeer" can pull ten times that 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 cruise liner.

Anything traveling at 650 miles per second creates enourmous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized with 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile, will be subject to acceleration forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a 4,315,015 pound force, reducing his jelly-like body to goo.

So if there is a Santa, he better be good. Damn good.


[/ QUOTE ]
 
Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

or this?

[ QUOTE ]
The oldest pilot
Santa Claus, upon trudging out to his sleigh for his annual night freight trip around the world, was surprised to find a guy with a shotgun standing next to his rig. Santa asked him why he was there. The man replied, "I'm from the FAA, and this is an unscheduled 135 inspection. I'll ride right seat." Santa responded, "With all due respects, sir, I've been doing this flight for over 700 years -- but if you insist, well, let's go." As they both climbed into the sleigh, Santa noticed that the FAA inspector brought his shotgun along with him, placing it in his lap, with his finger on the trigger. Santa queried, "What's the shotgun for?" To which the FAA inspector grumbled, "I'm not supposed to tell you, but anyway... You're going to lose engine number two on takeoff."

[/ QUOTE ]
 
Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

[ QUOTE ]
You're going to lose engine number two on takeoff."

[/ QUOTE ]
Kristie:
That is hilarious! I laughed out loud.
My 3 year old daughter is asking me why I'm laughing. How do I explain this one to her
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Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

[ QUOTE ]
You're going to lose engine number two on takeoff."

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder if he has to feather it?
 
Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

[ QUOTE ]
As they both climbed into the sleigh, Santa noticed that the FAA inspector brought his shotgun along with him, placing it in his lap, with his finger on the trigger. Santa queried, "What's the shotgun for?" To which the FAA inspector grumbled, "I'm not supposed to tell you, but anyway... You're going to lose engine number two on takeoff."

[/ QUOTE ]

But if he takes out Rudolph, then Santa won't be able to fly on an IFR day. So all the little boys and girls will have to hope for a non-white Christmas!

And yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Rebuttal: Several key points are overlooked by this callous, amateurish "study."

* Flying reindeer: As is widely known due to the excellent historical documentary "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the flying reindeer are not a previously unknown species of reindeer, but were in fact given the power of flight due to eating magic acorns. As is conclusively proven in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (a no-punches- pulled look at life in Santa's village), this ability has bred true in subsequent generations of reindeer--obviously the magic acorns imprinted their power on a dominant gene sequence within the reindeer DNA strand.
* Number of households: This figure overlooks two key facts. First of all, the first major schism in the Church split the Eastern Churches, centered in Byzantium, from the Western, which remained centered in Rome. This occurred prior to the Gregorian correction to the Julian calendar. The Eastern churches (currently called Orthodox Churches) do not recognize the Gregorian correction for liturgical events, and their Christmas is, as a result, several days after that of the Western Churches'. Thus, Santa gets two shots at delivering toys.
* Thirdly, the figure of 3.5 children per household is based on the gross demographic average, which includes households with no children at all. The number of children per household, when figured as an average for households with children, would therefore have to be adjusted upward. Also, the largest single Christian denomination is Roman Catholic, who, as we all know, breed like rabbits. If you don't believe me, ask my four brothers and two sisters--they'll back me up. Due to the predominance of Catholics within Christian households, the total number of households containing Christian children would have to be adjusted downward to reflect the overloading of Catholics beyond a standard deviation from the median.
* Also, the assertion that each home would contain at least one good child would be reasonable enough if there were in fact an even 3.5 children per household. However, since the number of children per household is distributed integrally, there is a significant number (on the order of several million) of one-child Christian households. Even though only children are notoriously spoiled--and therefore disproportionately inclined toward being naughty--since it's the holidays we'll be generous and give them a fifty-fifty chance of being nice. This removes one half of the single-child households from Santa's delivery schedule, which has already been reduced by the removal of the Orthodox households from the first delivery run.
* Santa's delivery run (speed, payload, etc.): These all suffer from the dubious supposition that there is only one Santa Claus. The name "Santa" is obviously either Spanish or Italian, two ethnic groups which are both overwhelmingly Catholic. The last name Claus suggests a joint German/Italian background. His beginnings, battling the Burgermeister Meisterburger, suggest he grew up in Bavaria (also predominantly Catholic). The Kaiser style helmets of the Burgermeister's guards, coupled with the relative isolation of the village, suggest that his youth was at the very beginning of Prussian influence in Germany. Thus, Santa and Mrs. Claus have been together for well over one hundred years. If you think that after a hundred years of living at the North Pole with nights six months long that they remain childless, you either don't know Catholics or are unaware of the failure rate of the rhythm method. There have therefore been over five generations of Clauses, breeding like Catholics for over one hundred years. Since they are Catholic, their exponential population increase would obviously have a gain higher than the world population as a whole. There have therefore been more than enough new Santas to overcome the population increase of the world. So in fact, Santa has an easier time of it now than he did when he first started out.

Santa dead, indeed - some people will twist any statistic to prove their cynical theory!


I'm sorry, I'm bored, I have nothing to do, and I have to be here for another 27 minutes.
 
Re: Specs on Santa\'s Sleigh from ASO.com

Is there a published Vmc for the sleigh with one engine, ahem, inoperative?
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