well, since this “impact thing” puzzled me a bit, i did some very rudimentary calulations. this foam piece that hit the wing was roughly 1kg. it hit the wing with 43m/s (given a 3g accelaration and 30m distance from “peeling off” to the wing). it had roughly 940 J kinetic energy (a .45 handgun bullet has 620 J kinetic energy at the muzzle end) or 430N (0.1 seconds of “impact”). this feels like a hit with a 43kg (95lb) thing. (hmm, i’m not completely sure about the last part of this sentence…)
i’m just a bloody physics amateur, but i would not say that a hit like this is harmless (like the boing engineers claimed). the heat shield tiles are made to resist heat, not force, they are very lightweight (lighter than balsa wood).
well, since this “impact thing” puzzled me a bit, i did some very rudimentary calulations. this foam piece that hit the wing was roughly 1kg. it hit the wing with 43m/s (given a 3g accelaration and 30m distance from “peeling off” to the wing). it had roughly 940 J kinetic energy (a .45 handgun bullet has 620 J kinetic energy at the muzzle end) or 430N (0.1 seconds of “impact”). this feels like a hit with a 43kg (95lb) thing. (hmm, i’m not completely sure about the last part of this sentence…)
i’m just a bloody physics amateur, but i would not say that a hit like this is harmless (like the boing engineers claimed). the heat shield tiles are made to resist heat, not force, they are very lightweight (lighter than balsa wood).
indeed a very sad story.