How much does Santa's sleigh weigh?

As we all know, Santa loads his sleigh with gifts for millions of children around the world and sets about distributing them during the night of December 24/25. To make them all fit in his stylish truck-sized sleigh, he obviously uses the same compression technology that enables him to jimmy up and down chimneys, infiltrate through A/C units, drink milk and eat cookies while evading bio-containment filters, intruder alarms, and such. We won't worry about that at the moment, but we can assume that the device does not modify mass (otherwise it would break all sorts of conservation laws, and make our physicists look silly indeed).

How much does Santa's sleigh weigh when he sets off with a full load from the North Pole? Specifically, is it heavier than the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier?

Bonus questions for extra credit:

1. Estimate the per reindeer power output level that allows the fully-loaded sleigh to perform essentially VTOL.
2. Total dollar value of the presents, and the size of the annuity needed to pay for them each year. (For simplicity, the manufacturing Elves can be assumed to be enslaved by Sandy Claws, to require no maintenance and to have no form of organized labor activity)

posted about 9 years ago

Serban Tanasa‭

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