Hello, ALL.

Awhile back, we were talking here about the Columbia disaster, and
speculating about what relative velocities of debris vs vehicle may have
been.

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

(Incidentally, that is similar to how they test door and window shutter
assemblies for impact resistance to windborne debris under the building
codes for south Florida and other coastal hurricaine zones- they have a
compressed air canon setup, and fire an actual piece of "2x4" lumber of
set size and weight to impact the door or window at a specified
velocity.  The door or shutter may be damaged, but it passes if it is
not breached.

Unfortunately, I didn't see anything about the rationale for the 500+
mph impact.  In any event, it is clear that the shuttle was moving out
smartly, and the lightweight insulation must have slowed down a lot due
to air friction before it struck the wing of the orbiter.

If anyone has seen more of the scientific details of the Shuttle
testing, I'd like to hear about them.

- - - JimH.

... Inquiring minds want to know. - Bubba
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