Re: Fungal strains in space spark worry - we might have already contaminated --

"Jim Wilkins"  wrote in message news:[email protected]...

...Fortunately we don't know from experience how massive that impact
might have been. The Space Gun I referenced can reach orbital height but not
nearly the velocity needed to stay there.
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This is the laboratory gun used to simulate lower energy meteorite impacts. 
It can't approach the velocity or energy of known historical impacts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-gas_gun
"Projectile velocities can reach 4.5 kilometres per second (16,000 km/h) for 
the 8.0-inch (200 mm) configuration and 7 kilometres per second (25,000 
km/h) for the 3.3-inch (84 mm) launcher configuration."

Minimum low circular orbit velocity is a little below 8km/S, meteors in 
solar orbits can go 2-3 or more times as fast, 3I/Atlas from deep space 
exceeded 60km/S. Anything with more than solar escape velocity must have 
come from elsewhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity
"If an object is in a circular or elliptical orbit, its speed is always less 
than the escape speed at its current distance. In contrast if it is on a 
hyperbolic trajectory its speed will always be higher than the escape speed 
at its current distance."

Earth escape velocity is 11.2km/S. To reach Mars a rock would have to still 
be going faster after leaving the atmosphere. Another 4km/S might get it to 
Mars though a lucky lunar gravity slingshot boost could be enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist

Going down to find help going up:
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/cassini-trajectory/

https://trajbrowser.arc.nasa.gov/traj_browser.php

That's enough time wasted on rocket science in a reasonably short posting. 
My college Physics course covered orbital mechanics only lightly and my 
attempt at computer modeling was unsatisfactory. A friend handled the 
orbital analysis of newly launched Soviet spacecraft while I was more 
concerned with how a space probe's scientific instruments operate, and did 
design and build a lab model of a proposed one.