Russell's Teapot - has it been done yet?

Question

Has anyone sent a china teapot into orbit, to "solve" the long standing Russell's Teapot argument?

I realize this is a "joke" endevour, but with the advent of easily available cubesats, has anyone done this yet?

EDIT: I am also interested in technical aspects of the payload. Does putting an off shelf teapot in hollow acrylic cube, glued or tied down, pass the requirements for cubesat? Or does it need to be fully embedded in acrylic block? Vacuum pump treatment to get outgassing out?

I’m voting to close this question because it's about philosophy, not space exploration. — GdD, Jul 26 '23 at 11:11
The question relates to a philosophical construct, but it's not "about philosophy". — Russell Borogove, Jul 26 '23 at 13:40
Cubesats that orbit the Sun between Earth and Mars are pretty rare. — Organic Marble, Jul 26 '23 at 13:55
The question is about solving the philosophical construct with engineering. Specifically - whether it has been solved yet. — Thomas, Jul 26 '23 at 14:11
Not cheap, but not extraordinary expensive. A cost of good car? I do not know what size and propellant mass are required to achieve the argument requirements. — Thomas, Jul 26 '23 at 14:43
@Thomas You understand that cubesats are generally only being lofted into LEO, right? It will take many km/s delta V to get from LEO to the asteroid belt, and then more to circularize the orbit. Even for a tiny payload, you're going to need a fairly large transit stage, and that all has to be lifted into LEO first, which means you're way outside the range of a cheap cubesat rideshare. — Darth Pseudonym, Jul 26 '23 at 15:33
I'm voting to reopen. Whatever one's opinion on the idea of sending the teapot, whether or not it has been done is a purely factual space-exploration-related question that can be answered. — Erin Anne, Jul 27 '23 at 03:05
@Darth The orbit for Russell's teapot isn't in the asteroid belt, it's between Earth and Mars. See https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/49976/16685 — PM 2Ring, Jul 27 '23 at 05:29
@DarthPseudonym I suppose lifting a teapot into an earth orbit does not satisfy the argument? It would be sufficient to say "we sent a teapot into an earth orbit, and you can't find it". If we truly couldn't locate it in such simple case, it implies of it being unfindable on an orbit between earth and mars as well. In addition, a hell of fun for amateur astronomers. — Thomas, Jul 27 '23 at 06:19
@PM2Ring Okay, I misremembered the specific orbit, but I don't think it makes a great deal of difference. The deltaV to escape from earth starting from LEO is ~3.5 km/s which is only half what it would take to reach the asteroid belt, but still a lot more than a cubesat can reasonably carry along. — Darth Pseudonym, Jul 27 '23 at 15:22
@Thomas If it's not in solar orbit, it isn't really Russell's Teapot, but again, the teapot thought experiment was about disprovability, and putting an actual teapot in the proper orbit would still be only a very expensive joke and have nothing to do with the actual point he was making. — Darth Pseudonym, Jul 27 '23 at 15:25
there's one red roadster meant to be driven on earth orbiting the sun right now, this might already be as random as a teapot to be found there — user721108, Jul 27 '23 at 17:56
Asked and answered in Astronomy SE: Is a literal instance of Russell's teapot possible? — uhoh, Jul 29 '23 at 23:48
@DarthPseudonym it could be a cubesat. These days electric propulsion is routine for non-time sensitive orbit raising and could take things to heliocentric if so desired. Not proof of that, but for background see: Going from LEO to lunar using only low-thrust ion propulsion - can it be done? and Is there a fairly detailed outline of CAPSTONE's "highly efficient ballistic lunar transfer trajectory" from LEO to lunar near-rectilinear halo orbit? — uhoh, Jul 30 '23 at 00:37
@DarthPseudonym and you can get plenty of help from clever use of the Moon's gravity as well, again for background: Spacecraft Maneuvers as Intellectual Property? Wow! and Does the arrow in this STEREO trajectory animation point heliocentric prograde, or towards the Sun? and Any news of TESS' lunar flyby; how well did go? and especially this answer to TESS orbit and moon resonance — uhoh, Jul 30 '23 at 00:41

Russell Borogove · Answer 1 · 2023-07-30T01:34:44.683

3

There seems to be some confusion as to what's actually being asked; I am interpreting the question simply as "has anyone sent a china teapot into any orbit in space?"

I'm unable to find any evidence of an actual teapot in orbit, though of course it's difficult to prove a negative.

Solar orbit payloads are relatively rare, so I'm fairly confident that form of Russell's teapot hasn't been launched.

It occurred to me that, while not optimal, it wouldn't be completely impossible to use a teapot for its intended purpose on a space station! The surface tension of water would tend to keep tea inside the pot while was brewing. Various headlines and Reddit posts allude to astronaut Tim Peake having taken a teapot to the ISS, but further investigation suggests he prepared tea in a plastic bag instead of a pot.

edited Jul 30 '23 at 01:34

answered Jul 30 '23 at 01:27

Russell Borogove

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Trying to use a conventional teapot to make tea in free fall would not end well. No convection to distribute the heat. Likely a steam explosion from the hot end. – Organic Marble Aug 03 '23 at 01:26
I seem to recall the "hot water" dispensers on the ISS not being very hot? – Russell Borogove Aug 03 '23 at 01:37
No idea about that, but I think they just fill bags. At least on the shuttle that's what they did. – Organic Marble Aug 03 '23 at 01:40
Ah, I guess you don't heat the water in the teapot. Got it! Thanks. – Organic Marble Aug 03 '23 at 01:43
1

Ah! Yes, teapot and teakettle are two different things. – Russell Borogove Aug 03 '23 at 02:58

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 30 '23 at 01:18

tl;dr Russell's Teapot is by definition invisible!

However, I think you are asking about something more like Has there ever been a deliberate "Find A Satellite" challenge? Actually, could there be? which is currently unanswered.

Anyway, back to Russell and his pot:

Various questions about the hypothetical teapot have been asked and answered in Astronomy SE:

Is a literal instance of Russell's teapot possible? I can't figure out if that very long essay-cum-answer is "yes" or "no".
Will the James Webb Space Telescope be able to detect/resolve Russell's teapot? answer: "Unfortunately, by definition, No :-(" Russell wrote in 1952: "...nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes." Russell was smart enough not to restrict to earthbound telescopes. The teapot is by definition invisible.
Musk's Roadster is now Russell's Teapot? which lets us think of Roadster/Starman (Falcon 9 upper stage plus red Tesla roadster in heliocentric orbit) as a sort of "Russell's Proxy Teapot".

For more on my proposed proxy teapot, see:

This is only one kind-of-famous candidate, but there are several bits of Apollo space missions that might be proposed, one with the additionally mystery of whether there's a bit of poo¹ floating around inside it (which I propose is now a Edgar-Allen-Poesque teapot-within-a-teapot. And there are plenty of deep space missions that are in heliocentric orbits somewhat similar to Earth's or at least approaching it from time to time, but are essentially "lost" for the time being.

¹In Scott Manley's words: The Apollo 10 floating turd

...and that might include one particularly famous piece of space trash the Apollo 10 floating turd we don't know who did it but you know if that was recovered it might now be possible to figure out who was really responsible for this.

Screenshot from Scott Manley's May 21, 2019 Apollo 10's Lunar Module Snoopy Is Lost In Space - Could We Bring it Home?

Russell's Teapot - has it been done yet?

2 Answers2

tl;dr Russell's Teapot is by definition invisible!