06 Jul 2003, 14:02, JIM HOLSONBACK (1:123/140), wrote to ALL:

Hi JIM.

Just a followup:

 JH> Recently, I saw in newspaper a writeup about experiments done by 
 JH> NASA - they made a compressed Nitrogen canon, firing a piece of 
 JH> lightweight insulation (BIR somewhat less than 1.5 pounds), and fired 
 JH> the insulation piece at a test article of shuttle wing leading edge at 
 JH> something like 530 miles per hour.  The test article(s) did sustain 
 JH> some damage.

(Highly edited)

   ----- SHUT.TXT begins -----
SAN ANTONIO (July 7) - A chunk of foam insulation fired at shuttle wing
parts Monday blew open a gaping 16-inch hole, yielding what one member of
the Columbia investigation team said was the ''smoking gun'' that proves
what brought down the spaceship.
...............
''We have found the smoking gun,'' Columbia Accident Investigation Board
member Scott Hubbard said of the panel's seventh and final foam-impact
test.
...................
The 1.67-pound piece of fuel-tank foam insulation shot out of a 35-foot
nitrogen-pressurized gun and slammed into a carbon-reinforced panel removed
from shuttle Atlantis.
.................
coming out at more than 530 mph...
.................
''We know that almost surely there was a breach on the order of 10 inches
in diameter,'' he said. ''Here we've got one 16, so that's in the same
ballpark in my book.''
.................
Monday's test at the Southwest Research Institute...  - best replicated the
blow from debris that occurred 82 seconds into Columbia's liftoff in
January.
.................
Two weeks ago, the investigation board identified the blow from the foam as
the most probable cause of the accident that killed the seven astronauts.
Hubbard said after Monday's test: ''I think foam hitting the wing leading
edge of the orbiter at 500 mph is the direct cause.''
.................
One month ago, another carbon shuttle wing panel - smaller and farther
inboard - cracked by the impact, along with an adjoining seal. This time,
the entire 11 1/2-inch width of the foam chunk - rather than just a corner
during previous testing - hit the wing, putting maximum stress on the
suspect area.
.................
Monday's test cost $3.4 million.

 AP-NY-07-07-03 2026EDT

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. 
   ----- SHUT.TXT ends -----

The only real 'facts' in there is that that the incident happened 82
seconds into liftoff, and that the test cost $3.4 million (damn, I know I'm
in the wrong business - there's a fortune to be made shooting holes in NASA
stuff!).  NASA records of the flight at the 82 second mark _should_ give
the exact rate of acceleration at that instant, and my guess is that's
where the 530 MPH came from.


     Good luck...  M.

--- Msged/386 TE 06 (pre)