Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic

A little spot or "splat" for magician David Blaine.

OK! He could hold his breath for over 17 minutes
[sorry, no spaceflight applications], starve for weeks on end,
and literally freeze his ass...but what's next for him?

I have a suggestion:
I've done the basic physics, and did the basic math,
and I suggest he be dropped from a helicopter a mile or two above
solid ground at sealevel.
He would need to be wrapped in bubblewrap [I use a lot of bubblewrap
at work] forming a cocoon of sorts.
The bubblewrap would be around 40 inches thick [one meter].
So I used this formula to figure out the drag force for terminal velocity.
[metric units]

(L x W) x sine(theta) x V^2 x d = M x g
g = gravitational acceleration [9.8m/s^2]
M = 80kg? [Dave's body mass?]
V = terminal velocity in m/s
d = average density of air.
L = length of bubblewrap cocoon.
W = width of bubblewrap cocoon.
sine(theta) = a crude approximation of the average angle of the cocoon into the airstream.
[45 degrees is close enough of a ballpark figure, so sine(theta) would be 0.707]

Forget the Reynold's numbers and coefficient of drag; the equation would get messy.

So V1^2 = 0 m/s
V2^2 = terminal velocity
d = radius of bubble wrap [one meter]
a = negative acceration upon impact
V1^2 = V2^2 + 2ad

Anyways!...David Blaine in such a cocoon would be subject to an impact force somewhere
between 15-30 gees.
How many gees did Colonel Strapp [Murphy's Law] suffer?

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