Santa Stranded: US Reindeer Rules Leave Him Stuck

[Tsu]

What will Santa DO?!?

He can't come to the US!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/03/reindeer.rules.ap/index.html

Maybe he can get some ReinDOGS trained real fast...

 

[Math Is Hard]

I'll volunteer to pull the sleigh if you will, Tsu!

 

[Evo]

Let's hook it up to that super RV Tsunami is getting for our Christmas trip to Tom's!

 

[arildno]

Damn!
I thought we could get rid of that old fart for a couple of hours during Christmas while he did his reindeer thing, but no, now he'll sit belching and hiccuping over his beer here in Norway.
We don't LIKE him, you know, we have to put up with him 364 days a year, we really deserve a Santa-free day..

 

[Math Is Hard]

Damn! but no, now he'll sit belching and hiccuping over his beer here in Norway.

Must be all that Ringnes beer!

Evo - smashing idea about the super RV/tour bus. And Santa should let Tsunami drive - he could be done in half the time this year!

 

[motai]

I would imagine Santa thinking of something... (turns on creative writing mode)

"Santa coordinates with NASA to achieve Christmas dreams -

From his frosty workshop in the North Pole, increased restrictions on reindeer travel have put Santa in a serious bind. Santa, ever resourceful from his innovative one-night giftathons, ultimately hooked up with NASA and JPL scientists to engineer a solution. His plan is to use the X-43a hypersonic aircraft to deliver his Christmas payload. The slender, sled-like aircraft was Santa's first choice because of its Mach 10 speed.

Though Santa did not divulge to the scientists any of his secrets of how he will be storing all of the gifts, all he commented was, "It is all in my jolly red bag." Unfortunately, this lack of information did not please the researchers, as they recognize that hypersonic aircraft are long and skinny and cannot carry much payload (much less the weight of Santa himself), but Santa reassured them that, "everything would be fine".

Santa's plan to deliver the near-orbital payload to children all over the world was to use a modified version of the Air Force's JDAM precision bomb-dropping system to accurately drop the presents directly into the chimney. Using sophisticated electronics and computerized systems, Santa can coordinate all of his efforts 100,000 feet from the Earth at 3402.9 m/s.

As for the cookies and milk, Santa commented that he will, "Find some way to eat those too.""

 

[Math Is Hard]

I would imagine Santa thinking of something... (turns on creative writing mode)

"Santa coordinates with NASA to achieve Christmas dreams - ..."

<snark!> now that's cool!
The problem of carrying around those gifts is what troubles me the most though. How does he compress that much mass into something that will fit into a sleigh?

 

[Evo]

Motai, that ws great!

The problem of carrying around those gifts is what troubles me the most though. How does he compress that much mass into something that will fit into a sleigh?

The answers are here: 4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh -- to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison -- this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

http://home.uchicago.edu/~rascalzo/arch/palace/library/humor-tech/santa-physics.html

A lot of people have already seen at least the first one, my favorites are the original Physics of Santa Claus and rebuttal #7.

 

[motai]

<snark!> now that's cool!
The problem of carrying around those gifts is what troubles me the most though. How does he compress that much mass into something that will fit into a sleigh?

That thought occurred to me as well (I couldn't explain it when writing it either), so I just assumed the magic of Santa and also defended his interest (Santa seems like he would want to reduce competition). He... could tow it if he had enough X-43's, but the towing lines would have to be awfully strong to counteract the air resistance. It would be less confusing if we just assumed it came out of his little red bag ho ho ho.

 

[motai]

Motai, that ws great!

The answers are here: Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh -- to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison -- this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

I wonder how much thrust those X-43s can produce. If there were horsepower calculations for the X-43 one could compare it to the power produced by a single reindeer. There is no need to use 214,200 reindeer when one can use scramjets.

 

[Math Is Hard]

oh cool- thanks for the link, Evo. I remember reading the "Physics of Santa Claus" but I had no idea so many people had written rebuttals!

 

[Moonbear]

Oh, Tsu, no need to worry. I have it on good authority that Flying Reindeer (Rangifer northpolus) are an entirely different species from those disease-ridden reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) they bring around to shopping malls. No need to worry, Santa's reindeer are all just fine and have all the necessary visas, passports and immunizations to get into the US.

 

[Tsu]

I'll volunteer to pull the sleigh if you will, Tsu!

Are you freakin' NUTS?
Do you know how much Santa WEIGHS?

 

[Tsu]

Oh. OK. I read the rest of the thread. I guess you know how much weight we'll be pulling now.

Good idea about the RV, though. They'll never catch us in that!

It never ceases to amaze me, though, how a simple thread about Santa and his reindeer can be turned into a TOTALLY geeky, technical, whacky science thing! You guys crack me up!

Moonbear is right, of course. I'm sure Santa has everything covered. In fact, you know..., we're having dinner with Santa this weekend. I'll check with him and get back to you.

 

[Evo]

For those of you that don't know, Santa in real life is our own beloved PF Mentor Integral, here is the picture to prove it! (Integral, you're a hunk )

http://home.comcast.net/~rossgr1/santa.JPG

 

[Tsu]

SANTA!

I've been a REALLY good girl this year, Santa! HONEST! Just ask Ivan! No. Wait. Not Ivan. EVO! Yeah! Ask Evo! No. Wait. I think she's still mad about me ripping the curlers out of her hair when we were kids. recon! There. Yeah. Ask recon. She LOVES her Auntie Tsu. In fact, she's here right now! Yeah! She stopped to see me on her way up to Canada. REALLY! She says to tell you "Yes, Santa. My Auntie Tsu has been the best girl in the world this year. Next to me, of course. :shy: " That's my girl! One couldn't ask for a better niece than recon. :!) :!)

 

[Math Is Hard]

Cool! Recon stopped by for some cookies at Tsu's.

(hope you didn't make her eat too much frozen broccoli before you gave her the cookies, though!)

 

[Tsu]

Cool! Recon stopped by for some cookies at Tsu's.

(hope you didn't make her eat too much frozen broccoli before you gave her the cookies, though!)

No, but I put some in her Christmas socks...

 

[Moonbear]

Hey, that's really cool that Recon stopped by! Tell her we said hi!

I just got back from a day volunteering for Toys for Tots...I feel like one of Santa's helpers today (and probably about the right height for the job). There are some COOL toys out there. No wonder Santa does this year after year. Hmm...I don't recall seeing any frozen broccoli though...those unfortunate kids are going to miss out on frozen broccoli in their stockings. How sad. Though I think it's time to hit the shower...as soon as I brave taking my sock off to see how purple my big toe is from dropping a pallet on it. It hurts. I have to stop hanging out with tribdog so much, I think he's a bad influence.

 

[Tsu]

Moonbear, read my post again. She's not really here. I was messin' with Santa! [/size]

I think we all feel that way about tribdog...

 

[Tsu]

note to self: do not be a bleeding-heart do-gooder or you will drop a pallet on your big toe and it will turn purple.

 

[Math Is Hard]

note to self: do not be a bleeding-heart do-gooder or you will drop a pallet on your big toe and it will turn purple.

No good deed goes unpunished...

 

[Moonbear]

No good deed goes unpunished...

That's EXACTLY what I said in an email to a friend of mine when I got home and was still trying to work up the courage to take the sock off. LOL! Great minds think alike!

It isn't too bad...still hurts, but only a nice light shade of lavender, not really purple. But, I got to hang out with cute Marine's all day! Though, the fact that I had more stamina than them to keep unpacking boxes and filling orders, etc, makes me wonder about just how they're training the military nowadays...I teased them a bit about it...but maybe there's a reason they have toy duty. Apparently the most important role of volunteers is to help the Marines figure out an infant toy from a toddler toy and to realize it doesn't have to be pink to be a girl toy! They kept putting all the cool stuff into the bins for boys, so I was putting all the cool stuff into the bins for girls!

 

[Math Is Hard]

They kept putting all the cool stuff into the bins for boys, so I was putting all the cool stuff into the bins for girls!

YAY, MOONBEAR! I'm glad you're on the job making sure the girls get some cool stuff, too.

p.s. I'll take a busted toe any old day if it means I can hang out with hunky guys in uniforms.

 

[Moonbear]

YAY, MOONBEAR! I'm glad you're on the job making sure the girls get some cool stuff, too.

p.s. I'll take a busted toe any old day if it means I can hang out with hunky guys in uniforms.

Yep, and the one mom there with all the girlscouts was on board with that too. They had bins of toys for girls and bins of toys for boys, and she and I put a whole bunch of boxes of toys right between the two bins because we decided they didn't have to be one or the other.

Two things amazed me while there. First, just the sheer number of toys donated that are pretty much suited for the 4 to 6 yr olds, and very few toys donated for younger and older kids. I can understand not having too many infant toys donated, because you figure infants don't really know they're missing anything, but not much even for toddlers. The only toddler toys were ones the Toys for Tots program bought with the cash donations.

The other thing that amazed me was just HOW MANY toys were there, and by the end of they day, we had seriously depleted that stock of toys despite having only filled about half the orders we had. That's a LOT of poor kids! They only got two toys each, so it wasn't like these kids are going to have a mound of gifts under the tree even.

But, yeah, hanging out with cute guys all day is a bonus. The just-out-of-high school kid there who was working off a community service requirement for something he'd been arrested for (probably underage drinking or something like that) was a little more challenging to work with. They had me showing him the ropes. The 10 year old Girl Scouts there were smarter than this high school graduate. They had about a gazillion of these little dorky action figures and packs of some sort of trading cards that were supposed to get added to every order as "stocking stuffer" type things (probably because they were too lame to call a real gift). Simple concept, the action figures were in cases of 12, the cards in cases of 24, make sure there's one of each per kid, and round up to the nearest whole case because there's no harm in giving a few extras of those. I explained 3 times, and he's still looking at me like he just doesn't get it. So, new strategy...grab a pallet, look at an order, and tell him...get 10 of those boxes, 5 of those boxes, then hand him the order and let him fill the rest.