Randall wrote: RC> I heard it broke loose about a minute into the launch. At that point, RC> they're still in the stratosphere, but supersonic. A piece of RC> ice-coated insulation would be very draggy, and would pull several RC> hundred g. It would have been essentially stopped by the time the RC> wing hit it at Mach 1+. Ouch.
Travelling at Mach 1+ would probably not lead to substantial melting of a compact ice layer. In our few experiments at SPL with LOX lines, that were lightly insulated (20 to 30 mm) we noticed, that the formation of ice depended heavily on the temperature and the humidity and whatnot. In some cases the frozen water had a fluffy snow like structure and sometimes virtually compact ice was formed. What kind of conditions prevailed when she sat on the pad I do not know. But I am sure there should be people that know. RC> I never took the insulation strike hypothesis very seriously before, RC> but ice at Mach 1+ would do enough damage to make that scenario RC> credible. Ouch again, and damn. Assuming Mach 1+ to be 400m/s a chunk of 2kg would represent an energy of 160kJoule. Further assuming that the impact was not oblique but at a shallow angle there remained eventually some 50kJoule. To produce 50kJoule by an objet dropped from a height of 10m under 1G would take a mass of roughly 500kg. Ouch. If damage depended more on the impulse rather than kinetic energy, then the impact would compare to a mass of only 50kg falling from 10m. Still ouch. And who says the chunk was only 2kg as it was visible from a rather big distance? Hans Hans Ulrich Ammann mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.spl.ch _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
