September
2008
Can Sarah Palin really see Russia from her house?
(4 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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Any intelligent person knows that Sarah Palin was joking when she said that she could see Russia from her house. It’s pure hyperbole. But everyone in the media keeps repeating it over and over, and I’m certain that some people probably actually believe it to be true. I bet that even the people that understand the hyperbole probably don’t realize just how much of an exaggeration it really is. So I decided to use my Distance To Horizon Calculator to see just how tall Governor Palin’s house would have to be in order to see the Russian coast.First we need to measure how far it is from Sarah Palin’s house to the Russian coast. To do this, I have used the Google Maps Distance Calculator. Since Mrs. Palin has two houses, we’ll start with the closest one first.
Wasilla
Wasilla, Alaska, is 1130 km from Russia.
How high above the Earth’s surface do you have to be to see a point 1130 km away along the Earth’s surface? If we start plugging numbers into my Distance To Horizon Calculator, we see that the answer is 101425.88 meters. You have to go 101 km (63 miles!) above Wasilla before you can see Russia. You can knock 104 meters off of that if you like to account for Wasilla’s elevation above sea level.
Just how high is 101 km? This graphic from Wikipedia puts it in perspective very well.
0.381 km – The top of the Empire State Building
8.848 km – The top of Mount Everest
10.668 km – Jet airliner cruising altitude
100 km – The Kármán Line that marks the border of “outer space”
101 km – Sarah Palin’s house
185 km - Space Shuttle operation
So an astronaut in the Space Shuttle passing directly over Wasilla could definitely see Russia as well, but no one down in the atmosphere that allows aeronautical flight could.
Juneau
Juneau, Alaska, is 2011 km from Russia.
To see Russia from Juneau, you’d have to go up 330,715.1 meters. That’s almost the 350 km altitude of the International Space Station.
My point is that, by necessity of both map folding and general human cognitive orientation, we all generally reason about the ground we live on as if it were two dimensional. When discussing line of sight, however, the curvature of the Earth comes into play even at very short distances. The millions of US voters that “sort of know that Alaska is up there to the ‘left’ of Canada” might actually believe that Palin waves goodnight to the Russians across the water every night. If you know someone like that, send them to this web page.
Disclaimer: these calculations have disregarded topography and the curvature of space-time, both of which would have a negligible effect.
Erik R.
Awesome.
I say this more to put your model to the test than to defend Sarah, but what she said was “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
While this is the equivalent of “you can actually see Russia from my house” in political terms, the “from my house” language comes from Saturday Night Live. It was Tina Fey’s joke, not Palin’s.
Anyway, the Great Gazoogle says Palin’s claim is correct. Does your model bear this out?
This is actually pretty neat. Go find the Diomede islands on Google Maps (hint: one is Russian, the other Alaskan), set the view to satellite, and start zooming in. Eventually you hit a zoom level where the satellite imagery changes from summer to winter, and it looks like maybe you could walk to Russia from Alaska.
No doubt Palin didn’t point this out because such a walk would have been illegal before she got her first passport last year.
Or maybe she didn’t want her swarthy husband to know about her audacious and passionate ice floe tryst with Vladimir, ended too soon by an early thaw. “Vladimir, your pants!” “No,” came his reply. His usual steely tone was softened somewhat by the almost unbearable emotional charge dissipating between them, much as the winter ice had given way under the brutal onslaught of spring. “You keep them.” She could barely hear him now, as his berg drifted slowly, silently into the Bering Strait. “My heart is in the back pocket.”
That claim is talking about being able to see from one island (Little Diomede) to another (Big Diomede). And they are very close.
But you cannot see Russian mainland from Alaskan mainland. According to the measuring tool I used, that is a distance of 85 km. To see that far, you would have to go up 566 meters, well higher than the Empire State Building.
You are very correct about the origin of the joke. But that’s the version that is getting repeated over and over again in the media.
so, i’m guessing that the answer to your post’s title question is “no, she can’t”? sorry, i’m not very good on all the technical stuff, but if you say it’s true and use lots of diagrams and stuff i’ll believe you!
The answer is “She could if her house was tall enough to reach outer space. But we’d have noticed that, so no, it’s not true.”
The bit about how you can see Russia from Alaska is true, but only if you cheat and use the two little islands in the Bering Strait that are split between the two nations.
I know this has done the rounds but it is well worth a watch if you have the ability to vote in the USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI8lvat-ezA&feature=related
Thanks for that, Hubbers. I hadn’t seen the whole interview. I knew about the last line, of course.
She’s a really skilled politician. She didn’t answer one single direct question, instead spouting vague generalities. I’m impressed.
It sickens/saddens me that it’s more important to hate gay people and to believe in fairy tales about that earth being only 7000 years old than it is to have knowledge or experience.
Very clear explanation, it makes perfect sense
….. unless Sarah Palin is a believer in a flat earth.
She loves creationism, so I could see her diggin’ the flat earth theory. I recently discovered a bulletin board full of people trying to rationally argue that the earth is flat. http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php it’s great for a laugh, at their expense!
Risottto, that page about theflatearthsociety is something between joke, experiment and honing debating skills over something so obvious that is not applicable to “real” discussions, making it great sandbox.
Yay, New Yorker!
I’ve also wondered if she is a flat-Earther. Flat Earth believer? Terra Flatta-er?* What do they call themselves?
*Here’s hoping “flatta” isn’t a really disgusting slang term.
Thanks for the useful information. We were able to reference you in our latest article about Sheepshead Bay and Sarah Palin.
http://www.sheepsheadbites.com/blog1.php/politics/sarah-palin
Thanks again,
Sheepshead Bites
Figured it would be good to pass this by you. Just to clear the air and in the interest of open communication, thought I would share this link with you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/29/the-emnew-yorkerem-can-se_n_130354.html
It was just the joke that they did on SNL and not Sarah Palin’s actual words that she could see Alaska from her house. Her own original comments were actually a bit more accurate.
Yes, Ray, commenter aquariumdrinker pointed this out above. I still think that most people don’t know that she never actually said those words, as it has been repeated so much in the media.
While this is good science, I think it discounts the essence of Governor Palin’s quote. Setting aside the argument of whether it is more important to be able to see Russia from her house, as opposed to from someplace in Alaska, the truly scary thing is what she implied.
In short, she meant she has vast foreign policy experience because she is close in proximity to a foreign land.
Shocking.
Erik, she wasn’t talking about seeing Russia from her house. That line was from SNL when Tina Fey was playing the role of Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler the role of Hillary Clinton. She did actually cite Alaska’s proximity to Russia as foreign policy experience. She never mentioned to Katie Couric that it was a “joke” and in fact made it worse in her efforts to explain her answer. Any person with critical thinking skills can see that she was absolutely serious in her absurd explanation of foreign policy experience. This has clearly gone beyond anything to do with political bias as both liberals and conservatives have been criticizing her.
Our social studies teachers must be rolling in their graves!!! To re-iterate here, where in the hell is common sense? The Bering Strait is creates a mere 50 mile pass between tje most eastern coast of Russia, and the , andlaska’s most western reach.
Okay, recall, how how our devoted teachers and social studies books, to boot, stated, that it was plausible how the first residents of North america made it across the frozen 50 mile stretch!!!
why is the press, and haters of Palin out to say the proximity of Alaska to Russian is meanlingless? Why, they hate the fact that an attractive woman with 5 kids can elevate herslef to possible VP. God bless palin and all the women of the world, that are not recognized for the advancements they have made…
I hear that the distance from Wasilla, Alaska to Moscow, Russia is about 4,350 miles. The distance from Washington, D.C. to Madrid, Spain is only 3,800 miles. If proximity makes for foreign policy experience, you’d think McCain would at least know who the Prime Minister of Spain is.
Yes, Tina. This is one of the few bits of information in social studies books that is still considered true. It’s still a non-sequitur. Why isn’t McCain touting the fact that he comes from a border state as foreign policy experience? Because no one would ever do that unless they were completely void of actual foreign policy experience.
Personally, I love the fact that a mother of 5 can elevate “herslef” to state governor and possible VP. But again, you’re bringing up logical disparate points. Being a mother or father alone does not make you qualified for likely becoming the leader of the richest country in the world. Senator Clinton or Speaker Pelosi understand volumes more about national and international politics than Governor Palin. Tina, I really hope, for all of our sakes, that you’re voting in this election because of reasons more intellectual than whether or not a candidate has a vagina.
I thought you were going to suggest McCain choose me as his running mate there for a second, ‘drinker.
Let’s just put it straight: Sarah Palin is a dumbass and is retarded. She seriously needs to STFU.
Why don’t you STFU Anynomous?
JKJK =)
The ignorance is amazing. Tina Fey said it, not Palin. Don’t worry, you are not alone:
http://www.howobamagotelected.com/
Yes, Zoom, because anyone that was reasonably intelligent or informed would clearly have voted for McCain. Obviously.
One of the major points of this post was how stupid the average American voter is. Of course that’s an easy scapegoat for any election loser, but that’s the name of the game: duping the flock into voting for you.
You are misquoting Sarah Palin… she said (paraphrased) “There are parts of Alaska, from which you can see Russia.” … It was actually Tina Fey’s sattire that said, “I can see Russia from my house.”
God, Gary, I so totes already made that comment like weeks ago. It’s pointless anyway, as the fact that you can see Russia (whether from your house or elsewhere in your state) makes you an expert about exactly jack shit.
Anyway, let’s talk about something interesting, like whether cars should have cheat codes.
Ooh. Cars with cheat codes?! That would be awesome.
Obama isn’t Muslim.