[mooeypoo]

Quote

A little while ago, the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem opened an exhibit featuring some of the torn, slightly burned pages of Col. Ilan Ramon’s personal diary from the shuttle Columbia. Ramon was the payload specialist onboard STS-107 (the spaceshuttle “Columbia”) that disintegrated during re-entry from space, killing all 7 crewmembers onboard. The diary survived the re-entry and subsequent crash, and was found in a field next to Palestine, TX.
Ramon’s personal diary fell close to 37 miles (almost 60 km) through the extreme conditions of re-entry. Unlike its human owner, it has survived the process and is now being restored and presented to the public in the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem.
During the weeks and months after the Columbia disaster, pieces of the debris were still being collected from wide areas in Texas. small pieces of insulation that detached from the outer parts of the shuttle to pieces of the Astronauts’ space suits. In an article covering the subject on “Universe Today”, The Israeli Museum curator is quoted as saying that “There is no rational explanation for how it was recovered when most of the shuttle was not.” It is no wonder, then, that many are awe-struck at such an apparent miracle.
But is there, really, no rational explanation for the survival of the diary? None at all? I doubt that. And when I doubt, I check it out, which is exactly what I am about to do.

Read more here.

Feel free to criticize, discuss, and make your own hypotheses (based on evidence, of course)

[insane_alien]

well, it could have been sucked out of a hull breach when the shuttle began to disintegrate and due to its high surface are to mass ratio rapidly decelerated before much frictional heating occured. also, the low oxygen up there would have prevented it from combusting as normal.

its actually quite feasible that it survived a partial reentry.

[mooeypoo]

Yes, tht's what I claimed too. What do youthink of my hypothesis? (it's continuing in the link i supplied)

[Gilded]

I think terminal velocity is pretty much key here, good that you mentioned it. A diary isn't exactly the most aerodynamic object ever, and its structure prevents it from breaking into thousands of pieces even if it does drop from high enough to achieve terminal velocity.

[mooeypoo]

BTW, a bit of news -- I was BABlogged :D

http://blogs.discove...-a-non-miracle/

yay!

[DrDNA]

Any idea what was in it?
Maybe that had something to do with it.

[mooeypoo]

Actually, there is some ideas - some of it is on display in the National Museum in Israel.. Some was "censored" by his wife, and some they just couldn't make sense of.

It's really very interesting :)