Title: Santa 3
Name: Sable
Date: Dec 22

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element.  Assuming
that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two
pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons, not counting
Santa himself.  On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than
300 pounds.  Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times
the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of
them---Santa would need 360,000 of them.  This increases the payload,
not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly
seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air
resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a
spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere.  The lead pair of reindeer
would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each.  In
short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the
reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.
The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a
second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his
trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating
from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to
acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems
ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015
pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing
him to a quivering blob of pink goo.  Therefore, if Santa did exist,
he's dead now...

Have a nice xmas.. heh heh.
