
The fastest object ever launched was a manhole cover - shawndumas
http://www.businessinsider.com/fastest-object-robert-brownlee-2016-2
======
DrScump

      Brownlee... expected the manhole cover to fall back to Earth,
    

If he claims that it was going 125,000 mph _and_ thought it fell back to
Earth, he's not much of a scientist.

~~~
eesmith
He thought the atmosphere would slow it down enough that it wouldn't escape,
even though it was initially going at well over escape velocity.

From
[http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html#Pasca...](http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html#PascalB)

> But the assumption that it might have escaped from Earth is implausible (Dr.
> Brownlee's discretion in making a priority claim is well advised). Leaving
> aside whether such an extremely hypersonic unaerodynamic object could even
> survive passage through the lower atmosphere, it appears impossible for it
> to retain much of its initial velocity while passing through the atmosphere.
> A ground launched hypersonic projectile has the same problem with
> maintaining its velocity that an incoming meteor has. According to the
> American Meteor Society Fireball and Meteor FAQ meteors weighing less than 8
> tonnes retain none of their cosmic velocity when passing through the
> atmosphere, they simply end up as a falling rock. Only objects weighing many
> times this mass retain a significant fraction of their velocity.

Also, from
[http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Brownlee.html](http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Brownlee.html)
comes this quote from Brownlee:

> "As usual, the facts never can catch up with the legend, so I am
> occasionally credited with launching a "man-hole cover" into space, and I am
> also vilified for being so stupid as not to understand masses and
> aerodynamics, etc, etc, and border on being a criminal for making such a
> claim."

