
Do they have an ebay store?
Food and heat-resistant tiles once destined for orbit will soon end up in the grubby little hands of schoolchildren, in a scheme aimed at inspiring a future generation of astronauts and space engineers. NASA are selling off dehydrated space food and shuttle tiles built to resist temperatures of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit to …
I have tried the food, and I also have one of these tiles. The easy way to distinguish the two is to conduct a little test. Unfortunately, this is not a definitive test. Give each sample a taste. Now, heat both samples up to over 1000 degrees or so. Fahrenheit, Centigrade, doesn't matter. After both samples have cooled. Make a second taste test. The heat tiles taste almost as good on the second test. The heat tiles should exhibit no discoloration, this is not always true for the food. The food may or may not be slightly discolored, and usually tastes much worse in the second test. After you've done this a few times, you'll get an intuitive feel and often be able to identify them upon visual inspection.
When I was in 6th grade the shuttle was just coming into existence. A few guys from NASA came to my school to give a presentation and we all got "samples", pieces/parts that were machined just out of spec or whatnot.
Talk about a great way to drum up interest in the space program!!! Of course, I wonder what the motivation is for it now, given that there is no space program...
Having "Digital Apollo" and "Rocket Propulsion Elements" in the Harry Potter laden school library would be awesome.
On second thoughts, reading about Rocket Propulsion might get some youngsters on the terror watch list or worse.
On third thoughts, are there any school libraries anymore?
"The tiles were built to resist temperatures of 3,000°F (1,650°C) created by the friction of space shuttles flying at 17,500mph as they re-enter the Earth's thickening atmosphere."
The main cause of the temperature rise is isentropic heating in the shock wave.
Friction plays a minor role.