Re: Apollo 8 and a LM

On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:26:16 EDT, kevin willoughby
<kevinwilloughby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Probably the most extreme multi-point failure was the 9/11 attacks.
Entire books can (have!) been written on what went wrong. Most ignore
the fact that the World Trade Towers were nominally designed to accept
the impact of a big jetliner. There is precedent for this. Back in the
1940s, a big airplane (a Boeing-built 4-engine bomber) crashed into the
tallest building in Manhattan. The Empire State Building still stands,
half a century after that crash. It is pure speculation what would have
happened if the World Trade Towers were still standing, but I suspect
the world would be a different place.

The airplane that hit the Empire State Building was a twin engined
North American B-25. It probably weighed 25,000 lbs or less, and was
travelling at 230 mph or less.
The 767s that hit the world trade center weighed 274,000 lbs or so,
and were going at (AA11) 470 mph and (UA175) 530 mph. The energy of
each at impact was therefore about 45-60 times greater than that of
the B-25. Add to that the 767s had at least 10x the amount of fuel on
board.

The Empire State is undoubtably a sturdier building than the world
trade towers, but don't kid yourself into thinking it would have
shrugged off that attack.

--Rolf

.

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