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NASA's Foam Test Offers Lesson in Kinetic Energy

Posted by michael on from the school-of-hard-knocks dept.

Puneet submitted a followup story on the foam test that NASA conducted to get an idea of what sort of damage could be caused by foam falling off the shuttle fuel tank at launch. As it turns out: a lot.

9 of 503 comments (clear)

  1. is it time to ban nerf guns then ... by spiny · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... could be possible terorist weapons :)

    --

    Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
    Leela: No he didn't.
    1. Re:is it time to ban nerf guns then ... by krisp · · Score: 5, Funny

      But Mr. Hubbard said the experiment showed that "people's intuitive sense of physics is sometimes way off."

      Definatly works for NASA.

  2. Uh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Foam fell off my shelf the other week.
    Should I be worried?

    1. Re:Uh... by doc_traig · · Score: 5, Funny

      Depdends. Was your shelf headed upward at a thousand miles an hour?

      (If it was, tell me where you got your shelf.)

      --
      So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
  3. Some how I just can't realate... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    foam and southern florida to science. I tend to get flashbacks of spring break.

  4. Glasses with tape by Mattygfunk1 · · Score: 4, Funny
    and privately predicted that the foam would bounce off harmlessly, like a Nerf ball.

    It is pretty obvious that these guys are geeks yes?

    __
    Cheap reseller hosting Action figures dragon

  5. This guy is a rocket scientist? by BenjyD · · Score: 3, Funny

    "That's when it came home to me what 1/2mv2 means"

    This guy is a rocket scientist? I guess that's one stereotype debunked.

  6. What is it with these Hubbard people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    First there's L. Ron Hubbard, now G. Scott Hubbard? Maybe the problem is that they were using Scientology for the first mid-mission damage assessment instead of science? It's all becoming clear now...

  7. Re:Intuition by MacAndrew · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're right on the falling penny issue, at least according to this empirical report. Isn't it nice when someone actually tries the experiment rather than accepting the conventional wisdom?

    It's intuitively correct, but I should warn that the physics of sleeker objects like cellphones are quite different, judging from the one dropped on me while descending a staircase last Memorial Day. Fortunately for me it was a glancing blow -- the phone shattered after deflecting from my head. Apparently a cellphone in freefall is not accompanied by an apology, but I took satisfaction enough in the destruction of the phone. :)