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Comment by krisoft | Hacker News Reader

> Apparently only one layer of the windshield was damaged

How does that square with the picture of the pilot’s arm with tiny cuts? Did the space debris only damage the internal layer? Something is not adding up to me here.

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Maybe the outermost layers just transferred the energy to the innermost, which exploded tiny shards of glass? In general though, I agree, weird.

And in tank warfare this is called spalling

A projectile hits the armor and doesn't penetrate it, but the armor inside still fragments and injured the operators

There a picture of glass spall in the cockpit and it's not unusual for ballistics glass to spall when hit by a projectile.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatLookedExpensive/comments/1oalnx...

> Spalling

This was also adopted by The Expanse, where the interiors of ships (particularly war ships) are coated in antispalling coatings.

didn't help Shed Garvey lol

My read is that it works mostly for battle shrapnel and space mining accidents and does nothing for kinetic weapons, hit or miss for micrometeoroids.

Shed was killed by a railgun round. These are kinetic projectiles, spall lining doesn't do anything against those.

If it somehow could then aiming for the reactor would spin the ship so hard you’d pulp some of the crew.

Hey bossman thanks for pointing this out. Will have to look for it next time I watch. Yam seng.

It’s mentioned in the books, kopeng. I think it comes up in some of the repair scenes, but there’s such a jargon dump in many of them that it might slip by. Naomi is caressing some of it at one point, like she’s petting a cat. Which is not far off from how she sees the Roci.

*bosmang. I'm not sure it's mentioned in the show, but it is in the books.

I can think of two in the show, but one is right before Holden needs to tell Nagata something important, and the other is in the middle of a brain dump at Tycho station when the Roci is being diagnosed for repairs.

Might have been a mention on the Agatha King.

That would be two layers though.

But the coloration in the window sure suggests spalling. I’m surprised the tempered glass did that much damage. That takes a lot of velocity. Which is probably why they aren’t thinking bird.

Came here to ask the same thing -- something is missing from the reporting because this makes absolutely no sense.

I suspect the cuts on the pilot's arm are from BEFORE the incident. The blood looks a pretty dried up and the yellowish streaks look like some kind of antiseptic ointment was applied. The oval shaped wound closest to the camera looks like it's been healing. Could be wrong though.

Now I'm just imagining the object hitting the window, the pilot looking down at his arm injury from the bowl of petunias that hit the plane yesterday, and thinking "not again."

ISWYDT. :-)

That pilot would not be having a whale of a time, that's for sure.

Why would there be a picture of the arm circulating if the injuries are from another incident? I won’t dispute your analysis of the photo because I don’t know anything about the subject

Edit: I take that back. Another photo has emerged showing more blood.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatLookedExpensive/comments/1oalnx...

None of the articles I have seen have said the lacerations are a result of the "space debris" incident. The linked article simply says "One of the photos shows a pilot’s arm peppered with small cuts and scratches", and which is not the same as "the pilot said the shattering glass caused the cuts you see on his arm."

I am saying it is possible that the pilot had a previous, unrelated injury, and it just so happened to be captured in the picture of the windshield. That picture is going viral because it was likely one of the first pics from the incident, but it does not mean his injuries are necessarily from the incident. I was only pointing this out based on the way the blood looked more dried up and treated/healing.

The pilot probably took the photograph after landing. There's no time to take selfies during an emergency!

Not saying it's what's happened here, but it's very easy for someone to post any image and claim it's from the same incident. Get the post enough attention and if it seems genuine enough other people will share and repost without fact checking, then people will share and reposts the reposts, and so on.

Professional outlets do this all the time, and they're _paid_ not to mess this up. Copying other outlet's bad reporting without fact checking, then once a couple more "corroborating" articles come up (or one from a reputable outlet) and it'll just be repeated as fact, they can't all be wrong right?

Making sure the plane continues to fly would be the top priority for a pilot. Second to that, formulating an emergency plan and communicating with air traffic control. Taking pictures of you wounds should be extremely far down the list

"Aviate. Communicate. Navigate." is so passé.

Now it's "Digitize. Publicize. Monetize."

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