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Foam Shot Causes Damage to Shuttle Mockup

Posted by michael on from the deploy-foam-cannons-for-homeland-security dept.

DoraLives writes "The New York Times is running a story describing the effects caused by a piece of foam fired at a fiberglass mock up of the Space Shuttle's wing. Although fiberglass is stronger than the RCC material on Columbia's wing, "The impact produced a 22-inch-long gap." Not good."

1 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Related: Why a Space Plane? by FirstManOnMoon · · Score: 5, Informative

    A plane design is the only way to carry heavy loads from space. The ballistic method severely limits the amount of material you could bring back. This isn't as big of an issue now, but originally the shuttle was designed to capture and return satellites for maintenance.