I posted on another list a summary of the argument that NASA's air-conditioned suits would not work in a vacuum, and provoked this thread: Chris writes: >Poor me. With only a high school level education in physics, I find myself puzzled by this. Can some more informed soul deal with this for me? Well, my education in physics only goes a few years beyond yours, but I did work on NASA birds for several years... The author states: "Heat is defined as the vibration or movement of molecules within matter. The faster the molecular motion the higher the temperature. The slower the molecular motion the colder the temperature." Temperature, not heat, is defined by such a rate, and this difference is the fault behind the whole theory. Heat is merely thermal energy. It is true that thermal energy in and of itself cannot be transmitted across a vacuum because of the lack of molecules, but there exists a mechanism by which the thermal energy becomes transmittable. Energy can travel across a vacuum. Whenever charges move about, they produce some electromagnetic fields. And so it is with molecules. Molecules carry charges. When each molecule buzzes about, it produces a single, *extremely* weak signal. When 12 gazillion do it, they produce 12 gazillion separate small signals. But since the 12 gazillion molecules are roughly the same temperature, and temperature controls how fast they whip about, and how fast they whip about determines the frequency of the emitted wave, the 12 gazillion independent signals are all about the same frequency, and the combined signal does in fact carry a good deal of energy. If you build a device that monitors the frequency being emitted, you've built one of those thermometer guns that you just point at the target. This is what the last bird I worked on did, with target = earth. It is this mechanism, incidentally, that allows the sun to heat up the earth. If a vacuum were a perfect insulator, I don't see how the sun could affect the temperature of things here on earth, through 98 million miles of perfect insulator, when I can easily hold a 1/8th inch thick styrofoam cup containing liquid nitrogen in my hands. And since the earth is always in full sunlight, save the moon's occasional shadow, if we are to believe the author's claims, which is that heat cannot escape through a vacuum, we must ask why the earth doesn't boil over like an astronaut's suit, since it too is surrounded by a vacuum. We've also got to believe that heat can enter an object through a vacuum, but cannot leave an object through one, unless the object is the sun or at least sun-like. FYI, the higher the frequency, the more energy that is contained in the signal. In steady-state, the temperature of the object will adjust itself so the frequency is such that the energy emitted equals the energy being absorbed. It's somewhat neat to think that an 8-ball in orbit about the sun will absorb energy from a very wide spectrum...infrared, visible light, ultrviolet, radio, mmw, etc, but the ball will pretty much be uniform in temperature, so all its molecules will jiggle at the same frequency, and the signal it emits will be in a very narrow spectrum. The energy absorbed from the sun will equal the energy emitted, so the 8-ball has taken a full spectrum of colors, absorbed it, and produced a new single color. Not bad for an 8-ball. And if you really care.... Since the waves that are emitted precisely tell the tale of the molecular movement that produced them, if you can read those waves, you're getting a much better measure of the actual thermal energy of the target than if you were to use a thermometer, since a thermometer requires a host of things to work right, is made inaccurate by many different things, and gives the temperature of the thermometer, not the temperature of the target. --Mark ***** I replied: I don't quite see how clarifying the definitions of heat and energy explains this puzzle. The writer may use some words wrongly, but he also is obviously saying that solar energy is transmitted through space, without heating the vacuum. What he wonders about is how an air conditioning system based on heat exchange and evaporation can work where there is no medium for exchange, and when evaporation of ice does not occur in the shadow side. Elsewhere he claims that, although NASA explains that the spaceship itself was cooled by rotating it, this would be equivalent to turning a hot dog on a spit. The basic question is: how does heat escape, other than through slow entropy and perhaps radiation, from the shadow side of an object in space? ----------------------- and received this response: > I don't quite see how clarifying the definitions of heat and energy > explains this puzzle. I don't quite see how you see a puzzle: every step in his reasoning is based on dead wrong science and/or bluster. His insistent use of meaningless numbers should quickly clue you in to something being seriously wrong. Anyway, his argument would imply that the whole space program doesn't exists, and there's quite good evidence that it does: things like GPS and (RIP) Iridium. Anyway, getting the basic physics down right explains away the vast majority of the silliness. The only energy available to heat the astronaut is light from the sun, and the refelective suit reflects most of that. I wouldn't be surprised if the heat generated by the working astronaut exceeds the heat due to absorption of solar radiation. The article _claims_ that there's lot's of heat. But its support for that claim is completely bogus. (I assume that since the author uses the term, I'm allowed to also. However, in my case, it's technically accurate: the numbers he uses really are meaningless.) > The writer may use some words wrongly, but he also > is obviously saying that solar energy is transmitted through space, > without heating the vacuum. What he wonders about is how an air > conditioning system based on heat exchange and evaporation can work > where there is no medium for exchange, This section I'd classify as bluster. (Have to carefully justify my perjorative terms here.) Of course there's a medium for exchange: there's an internal system that pumps water in pipes around the space suit and thus moves heat (carried by the warmed water) from the space suit to the heat exchanger where a separate supply of fluid is sprayed on the outside of those pipes. When that fluid evaporates, the energy required to effect the phase transformation has to come from somewhere. If the initial water that evaporates (and evaporate it does) freezes the inside of the water drop, and the resulting ice builds up on the heat exchage tubes, we're home free, since: > and when evaporation of ice does not occur in the shadow side. For starters, a metal tube coated with ice will make water flowing through that tube plenty cold enough to provide a quite reasonable amount of cooling inside the suit. If he argues that there's ice on the heat exchanger tubes, then he's arguing that there's enough cold to remove the heat. By the way, ice does "evaporate (the correct term is "sublimate") in a vaccum. I'd guess that a layer of crud of some sort on the surface of the ice on the moon would be required to prevent sublimation. So his science here is dizzy as well. > Elsewhere he claims that, although NASA explains that the spaceship > itself was cooled by rotating it, this would be equivalent to turning a > hot dog on a spit. Objects rotating in space absorb radiation on the hot side and radiate on the cold side. > The basic question is: how does heat escape, other than through slow > entropy and perhaps radiation, from the shadow side of an object in > space? You'd have to do some calculations and see what the numbers look like. Since the moon manages not to melt, there's obviously a temperature where re-radiation balances absorption, even for a non-rotating object. David J. 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