Quote:
Originally Posted by JulianLW
If you don't call having all of your bones broken into smallish pieces and all the stuff inside of your skin turned into a semi-liquid pulp "obliterated," then the damage you're looking to describe doesn't exist in the actual world.
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Human terminal velocity - around 120 mph if spread-eagle, around 180 mph if diving headfirst - is hardly the speed limit of what humans can reach. A quick look online gives modern passenger jets having a cruising speed of 550-600 mph. Fighter jets can go much faster - the fastest was apparently the Lockheed YF-12, which could get up to 2,275 mph. And even that's a bit slow compared to orbital velocity - the astronauts currently on the International Space Station are traveling around the world at a rate of 4.76 miles per
second, or around 17,136 mph.
Of course, I think you're overstating the effect of a terminal velocity fall, at least for a human. From what I understand, the result is typically
fractured bones and
ruptured organs, not
shattered bones and
liquefied organs. Of course, in some settings, the latter may well be the typical case.