[dixierose]

Seems almost impossible for human tissue to have survived that kind of temperature, velocity and trauma.

I saw a picture of a mission patch that had survived...it didn't even have a burn or a tear. It's amazing to me how ANYTHING is left.

But, in a way, it reminds me of tornado stories where an object is picked up and then placed gently on the ground again...while, at the same time, a house is completely destroyed.

[Ramius]

I saw a picture of a mission patch that had survived...it didn't even have a burn or a tear. It's amazing to me how ANYTHING is left.

I saw that too. I wondered how only the patch survived, but not the rest of the suit.

Then it hit me. The patch probably was never on a suit. I'll bet they take a whole box of mission patches up with them. After the trip they can use them as gifts, or sell them in the giftshop (or whatever) as mission patches "that have actually been in space". Seems reasonable to me. There might be hundreds of them.

They would survive because they flutter almost immediately to a slow speed and don't get hot.