18 Feb
1999
18 Feb
'99
12:21 a.m.
On Wed, 17 Feb 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
I guess we'll have to see what information is
available on the net about
that January 1986 event. I do seem to recall that the flight was about 2
minutes 10+ seconds underway when the ship hit the fan, so to speak. The
entire trip into orbit only required about 8.5 minutes, so they were a fair
piece of the way along.
Due to the way accelleration works, the first two minutes are the slowest.
The breakup happened 72 seconds after liftoff at about 48,000 feet up, it
peaked at about 65,000 feet before falling back down. Impact in the
Atlantic was less than three minutes after the breakup. This puts it a
fair number of miles off the coast, but not that big a fair number.
A good collection of information is at <http://www.fas.org/spp/51L.html>.
--
Ward Griffiths
"the timid die just like the daring; and if you don't take the plunge then
you'll just take the fall" Michael Longcor