Given that the space shuttle was traveling at about Mach 18 and was about 200,000 feet above the earth at the time of its explosion I got to thinking about how fast and at what angle the larger pieces of debris fell by the time they hit the ground. I imagine the smaller pieces would have lost much of their forward speed due to air resistance, but how fast would the larger pieces have fallen? Did they just drop straight from the sky after having fallen nearly 40 miles or was there still enough velocity left for them to have struck at a shallow angle and then tumbled a ways farther?
Also, while I have not read any accounts of people being injured or killed or property being damaged by falling debris were there any close calls or at least some eyewitness accounts of debris landing within close range? I can just imagine what it would be like for a golfer on the golf course or a motorist on the freeway to suddenly see a large chunk of metal crashing down to the ground right in front of them.
Simply put, the pieces would have an initial velocity to continue in the direction of the shuttle’s path while falling. They wouldn’t come to an instant halt and drop…as we commonly see the Coyote do in the cartoons when running off a cliff, for example. The only exception might be pieces so light, the air resistance would quickly reduce the initial velocity to zero, but these pieces woul flutter their way while falling downwards.
I heard an account of a fire being started at a Texas apartment complex in the area due to falling debris. - Jinx
The trail of Shuttle debris found so far (excluding the reports from California and Arizona that haven’t been verified) extends from the area of Ft. Worth Texas to that reservoir (the name escapes me) on the Texas-Louisiana border. That’s roughly a 150-mile line.
I remember seeing either on the day the Shuttle broke up or the next day a report from Nacadoches, Texas that pointed out the holes that suddenly appeared in one family’s roof, although they hadn’t found any debris.
There was also a report of debris being found in the median of a 4-lane highway, but it was a small piece, not a large chunk.