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Pastimes : Shuttle Columbia STS-107 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (112)	2/2/2003 1:54:30 PM
From: J.B.C.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 627

If the foam breaks away, its also travelling the same speed right at break point. There is also a cushion of air around the shuttle that is more or less travelling with the shuttle, the foam would have decelerated, but over that short of distance it's not likely to have gained the full delta speed. I'm not discounting that the foam might have been the root cause of this accident, it would be prudent to wait until more data is revealed. Jim

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (112)	2/3/2003 5:10:32 PM
From: Yogizuna	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 627

Yes, at 2,000 miles per hour, a piece of relatively harmless foam could cause some very serious damage. It probably did not hit Columbia's left wing at that speed, but since the heat tiles that protect the Space Shuttle on reentry are relatively fragile, even if the material striking the wing was in fact "foam" and not ice, it still could have caused some damage in my opinion, perhaps just enough to tip the scales enough to help cause the terrible disaster.