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Extra txt to 24 June 2003
Posted 28 June 2003

First a bit of quotes, after that some remarks (or some comments):  

Comments: Rather puzzling details again. I remember rather clearly that instead of 11.5 pound also a number 2 pound was read in Media files. Of course Media files often lack precise detail info, so what is real in this case?

Another problem is that I never paid much attention towards the kind of math you need to make good predictions around these kind of problems (foam letting loose and smashing in later on a wing). For example it was read that the foam did smash in with a speed of over 500 miles an hour.

Lets make a few simple calculations, when the foam is 2 pound and the 500+ number is correct than this foam did release at most 25.000 Joules of (kinetic) energy on the wing. But I still have problems with the 500+ miles/hour speed in the 80th second after take off.
When the foam would smash in on the wing at 500+ miles/hour, how fast does the space shuttle itself go? And when the space shuttle does indeed go at 500 miles/hour or even faster, how many miles above zero level are you then?
And what is the density of the air at that particular height? Is this density of air truly enough to give the foam a speed of 500+ miles/hour?

How is this all related to the density of the foam itself? When the foam is relatively high density than the 500+ number of in-smashing speed cannot be correct and if the foam has a very low density than the 500+ number could be correct but in that case the amount of transferred kinetic energy cannot be high enough to give a damage of many inches long.

So all in all I am very sorry, but until now I simply do not buy the crap of 'foam only'. May be that when I know more of the math needed in this kind of questions and may be if I did have some piece of that particular kind of foam into my hands I will reach another conclusion. 
But in reality I will never have such a piece of foam in my hands, your political bosses will always prevent stuff like that. And I will probably never take the time to try understand the rather difficult math around this kind of high speed air flow. So NASA just figure it out for yourself, and never forget you could also argue this way:

Suppose it was indeed some kind of 'platoon offer', don't you think that the White House will do everything to make this classified as some 'accident'? Exactly like what happened with the fourth plane on New York? Exactly that kind of behavior? This could be, mark my words I am not saying this is actual the case, all I say it 'This could be.'. 

End of foam troubles, bye readers.

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Remark (later added, on 07 Oct 2003): Finally I found the details I wanted to know. The details are the at the moment of foam collapsing the shuttle had a speed of approximately 1600 miles / hour on a height of 66 thousand feet.
I don't know how thin the air is at this height, but after all it could very well be that the 500 miles / hour impact of the foam is a correct number. 
This does not take away that the crew (partially) knew what was going on, but they simply took their chances on this one or they 'served the story'. I just don't know...

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