At What Point Does Space Begin?

I was reading this month's Focus magazine of science and discovery, and was drawn towards an article "At what point does space begin?", which when you think of it is a good question, but you can't really get a straight answer out of anyone nowadays?

But this is what the bloke (Robert Matthews) was saying:

"More than 40 years after astronauts started exploring space, theres still no internationally recognized legal definition of where they have ventured. NASA has long had a tradition of awarding anyone who reaches an altitude of 80km "astronaut's wing" certifying that they have been into space. During the 1960's eight pilots from NASA's X-15 experimental rocket-plane were awarded this accolade, like the astronaut's of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programmes. With pilot Joe Walker reaching a height of more than 100km on two flights in 1963. Most spaces experts agree that missions to this altitude constitute genuine spaceflight, and it may yet become the legal standard, with lawyers in Australia last year becoming the first to adopt 100km as the definition of where space begins"


I mean its not as though you can pull a tape measure out, and start counting, can you? And where would you stop and say, "This is outer space".

Anyone got any ideas where space starts????


blackwidow

at the outside of the van allen belts?



zebu.uoregon.edu...

Fury

Thank you fr coming back with that< yes Im gonna say it>
but!
On there it said that the "astronauts wings" are at 50km but in the article it said 80km? Strange that a bloke interviewed for the mag, would say 80km, I know its only 30km difference but still alot! (when I looked through the likn, that also said 80 (81km)?

Good clear pic though and informative!

where did you get that from? pls

blackwidow

lol, i dunno,
did a google search and it just popped up.
(i'm pretty instinctive on finding shizz on the internet)

I did "yahoo" and came back with S..t really, knew I should have done google instead, thanks bab!

blackwidow

Originally posted by blackwidow666
I did "yahoo" and came back with S..t really, knew I should have done google instead, thanks bab!

blackwidow

no prob.. check out the URL i included up there, it explains why there's such inconsistancy on this topic...

Thanks fury!

Was just reading the link, very interesting as well, coming from me, thats good!


blackwidow

Well,

According to my recent and thorough investigations it begins about a quater of an inch iside my left ear and extends to infinity

tut tut

Blackwidow...

the discrepancy between your author's 80 and Fury's 50 is the same thing that lost a NASA ship to Mars...


km and miles

80 km = 50 miles

Also, I wanted to add that notice in your ORIGINAL post that near the end you referred to "outer" space. The space station is at about 300 miles...so it's in space...just not OUTER space and it does indeedy suffer aerodynamic drag.

Here's a great site for Space topics.

www.bbc.co.uk...

The media are good for some things!!!

This is one of those really geocentric things.

We are in the 'outer space' of any sentient being in another galaxy.

I think it's reasonable to just describe atmospheric phenomena around the earth for what they are, and phenomena outside the atmosphere for what they are.

Why is there a need for a legal standard? Are countries really going to be trying to claim bits of space for their own, soon? I don't see it happening, but then again...

Wouldn't it start at the sub atomin level