Wow, I got one right? Cool.

I looked at some of your FAQ’s. With the beryllium added to the copper, it’s the same mix as the Mark 3 reentry body heat shield used on the Poseidon missile.

Also, I love the term “Whipple Shield.” These go back at least to 1951 when he working with von Braun and Ley on their spacecraft concepts for the famous “Colliers” series. He proposed a thin (2 to 3 mm) aluminum shield spaced a few cm off of the surface it was protecting. Any impactor that didn’t just vaporize on the surface would have its energy greatly spread out by having a large number of secondary particles generated, which the lower surface could deal with. This is the basic concept behind segmented armor.

- Jack

We are working on the EPOXI FAQs as well…
http://epoxi.umd.edu/8faqs/index.shtml
Elizabeth
EPOXI webmaster

SPAM ALERT

The comment from Ereksiyon (two or three comments before this one) is SPAM.

You can delete this one too, if you want.

-Dave

Doesn’t whether the Earth gain or lose orbital energy depend on how the flyby goes? I know that at least one astronomer has seriously proposed extending the Earth’s lifetime by using comet bypasses to move it outward over millions of years. Does that mean it would be gaining orbital energy, or losing it? Orbital velocity would be slower, so less kinetic energy, but it would be further from the sun, so more potential energy. Must think about this. I should sit down and do the math. Let me see, can’t do Ep = m g h because solar g isn’t constant over differences of AUs…