From: Walter Hicks (wallyshoes@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Jun 07 2003 - 14:56:09 EDT
I have some experience with light objects (chaff) dispensed from aircraft
flying around 900 ft/sec. It only takes several milliseconds for them to
get to ground speed.
deceleration > 900/(3*10^-3) = 300,000 ft/sec/sec = approximately 10,000
gees.
I'd expect foam to act somewhat similarly. Maybe not thousands of gees --
but hundreds at least. Best assumption (for a first approximation) would
be that the foam was at zero velocity when the shuttle struck it.
Walt
"Stein A. Stromme" wrote:
> [George Murphy]
>
> | D. F. Siemens, Jr. wrote:
>
> | > But the piece was quickly decelerated by the air through which
> | > they were flying, so the relative velocity on striking the shuttle
> | > wing was close to the velocity of the craft.
> |
> | This would require that air resistance quickly kill off the
> | _upward_ velocity the foam would have had on breaking away. That
> | would take some time, & again one needs to know some numbers to
> | estimate whether there would have been enough time.
>
> George,
>
> It seems reasonable to me that air resistance would indeed be a
> stronger factor in this situation than the 1G of gravity you allowed
> for in your own computation. What is special about upward velocities
> with regard to air resistance?
>
> Stein
> --
> Stein Arild Str¯mme +47 55584825, +47 95801887
> Universitetet i Bergen Fax: +47 55589672
> Matematisk institutt www.mi.uib.no/stromme
> Johs Brunsg 12, N-5008 BERGEN stromme@mi.uib.no
-- =================================== Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>In any consistent theory, there must exist true but not provable statements. (Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic If you have already found the truth without it. (G.K. Chesterton) ===================================
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