[spunkets]

"Please tell me how NASA could assume a 5 to 10' brick hitting the shuttle moving in excess of 1000 mph would do no damage. I'd like to hear the parse on that."

It's the relative velocity of the obiter vs debris that's important, not the rel.vel of those things vs earth. To know how fast the debris was going relative to the obiter, neglecting wind, you have to know the time, or distance the stuff fell(decelerated), both are known, and the acceleration of the rocket. I saw an est that it was about 80-150mph, but I didn't check it.

The debris doesn't have the hardness and density of brick though. It's either foam, or a thick frost layer.

[spunkets]

"obiter"

Sorry, obiters are orbiters that were painted by a crew w/o coffee.

[DoughtyOne]

Let me explain something about relative speed. If you've ever had your hood blow up on your car going fifty miles per hour, you'll throw the relative speed carpola out the window. That insullation hit the orbiter at hundreds of miles per hour. Of course I can't say exactly what speed, but it was nowhere near the 80-150 mph range.

Now, as for the density of the insullation, they've been talking about it all day on the news stations. It is applied like shaving cream and hardens to something on the level of a brick. That's their words, not mine. I've seen a number of people say it today.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

It's the relative velocity of the obiter vs debris that's important, not the rel.vel of those things vs earth. To know how fast the debris was going relative to the obiter, neglecting wind, you have to know the time, or distance the stuff fell(decelerated), both are known, and the acceleration of the rocket. I saw an est that it was about 80-150mph, but I didn't check it.

The debris doesn't have the hardness and density of brick though. It's either foam, or a thick frost layer.

Check out what can happen in a tornado, with winds of around 200 mph. Things like 2x4's get punctured through thick brick walls, straw and twigs can punch holes through glass, etc. Anything hitting a brittle ceramic material at speed is bad news.

[southland]

Regarding to speed at impact: A wet noodle would break a windshield very badly if speed were very high in the subject vehicle.