[Sloth]

I find it hard to believe that the foam slowed down enough to go from a delta-V of zero to 500 MPH in the short distance involved. Then again, it's hard to say without knowing the air density, shape of the chunk, and so forth.

[eno_]

At the speed the shuttle was moving, a 500mph relative velocity is a small perctage of the shuttle's speed, and, IIRC, the shuttle was still accellerating at that point.

[Resolute]

"I find it hard to believe that the foam slowed down enough to go from a delta-V of zero to 500 MPH in the short distance involved. Then again, it's hard to say without knowing the air density, shape of the chunk, and so forth."

We examined that from a physics / math perspective here . . .

Observation on TPS damage on Orbiter (Post 2440)

Observation on TPS damage on Orbiter (Post 2445)