On 14 Feb 2016 at 21:49, Knapp wrote:

> All this boat safety is a good model but what of the Black boxes on
> jets?  There are many good cases where they crashed but no one ever
> found the plane or the box and this was on the Earth in a very small
> space compared to TU and with satellites watching and the Black boxes
> broadcasting where they are and with flight plans. I do admit that
> water is a big factor but in space you might also have the Black
> Boxes falling planetside or even into the sun.

Falling into the sun is actually harder than leaving the system
forever. You have to *completely* kill the tangential velocity (which
at Earth's orbit is about 30 km/sec).

To escape the solar system from Earth's orbit you only need an extra
12 km/sec.

Also, it'd take a *long* time to get to the sun, even if the vector
was right and the ship had been boosting at several gees for hours.

As for losing black boxes and planes, that has happened even on land.

Just consider that planes have taken *weeks* to be found when they
crashed between Portland and Eugene. (I'm thinking of a crash that
was in the news a few years back).

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com