Material from Another Thread
Since you're resuming discussion here, I want to add some anotation etc from another thread that I think will provide a somewhat better, more holistic overview of Charles' ideas. I don't find in that other thread specifically what I was looking for with respect to triboelectricity etc, but I'll just paraphrase first here what I think I remember him saying about that. The anotation will be below after this paraphrasing.
Weak Triboelectricity
Charles didn't mention triboelectricity, as far as I recall, but he discussed the effects of air friction, as well as charge effects from the ionosphere on meteors passing through. Triboelectricity is said to be from friction mainly, it seems, and Wikipedia mentions that aircraft can develop such static electricity too and rockets have to avoid taking off when clouds are overhead because the static charge can interfere with radio communication with the craft. But that's all rather weak charging. Some meteors likely approach the Earth as slowly as the space shuttles did, but they don't develop an arc discharge at such slow speeds. When lightning apparently struck Columbia, it didn't do much direct damage that I know of. I think it broke up from air turbulance after losing control, so that the heat shield no longer protected the craft. Heat did a lot of damage too, but much of the breakup was likely due to centrifugal force from rapid tumbling. But the lightning doesn't seem to have pulverized much if any of the craft or the payload etc.
Triboelectricity on Steroids
That's the effects from relatively slow speed impact of an object hitting the atmosphere. A high-speed impact at over 50 km/s (I think the figure was 70, if I remember right, but I'm just estimating anyway) would specifically have the following effects, I think. Whether the object is impacting ions or atoms in the air or ionosphere, any outer electrons of air molecules that hit the object, as well as the leading face of the object itself, would be stripped off, while the remaining parts of many of the atoms would penetrate into the surface of the object to some depth, because of much greater momentum than the electrons. Many atoms would also be deflected and not penetrate. You can call the stripping of the outer electrons friction, I suppose, but normal triboelectricity doesn't involve ions penetrating into an object, so that seems to be how this would be much more powerful than typical triboelectricity. The penetration would occur at the front of the object, but the friction very well may cause the object to spin or tumble, just as an aircraft (or any other object) would surely tumble, if it went out of control at such high speed. If the object did not spin, the same effect would occur (of ions penetrating the object), but mostly on the front half where there would be greater heating than if the object were spinning. Heating would release electrons from the surface and from the interior of the object as the heat increases from the outside in.
Bow Shock
Some of the electrons that separate from atoms on the front side of the object would pile up in front of the object, because they're attracted to the increasing positive charge of the object, but heat prevents them from combining with the positive charge. I think the layer of electrons in front are what Charles thinks make the bow shock for meteors and supersonic aircraft etc. (I could find his post on that if I took more time to search for it.)
Airbursts
As the object moves through the atmosphere, especially if it's on a shallow entry angle, it's constantly losing electrons. I think the electrons that fall away from the object flash brightly in the wake as they recombine with atoms or protons. As the object loses electrons, the surface as well as toward the center become positive charged and, since like charges repel, the repulsion often eventually overcomes the chemical covalent bonds, and this may occur explosively, resulting in an airburst, or a breakup.
Ground Impacts
If the object is large enough to remain partly intact until it reaches the ground, and if it's velocity is still great enough, the impact results in thermonuclear explosion, which produces the unusual formations within craters. The material that explodes is largely plasma and there would be arc discharging just before and during impact, but the discharge apparently would not be the main explosive force involved.
Anotation of Part of Other Thread
1. In this post in another thread
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 120#p76195 I asked Charles if he had ideas about
meteor impacts being able to trigger earthquakes or vulcanism and what he thought of Thornhill's theory about the
Tunguska event being caused by lightning pulverizing a meteor in an airburst.
2. In the next post there at
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 120#p76229 Charles explained 1. why he thinks
craters are caused by thermonuclear explosions from impacts rather than from megalightning; and 2. why
meteors might spin from air friction, causing huge magnetic fields, electric current through the core and thus electric discharge airbursts (apparently this was the first time he expressed any ideas on these magnetic field effects).
3. Then, in subsequent posts, JC discussed Charles' star model, and I commented on the novelty of Charles' idea of meteors impacting in thermonuclear explosions. Then at this post
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 120#p76265 Webb raised some issues with
Charles' impact model.
4. Here
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 120#p76287 Charles replied to JC, me and Webb, the
reply to Webb being most relevant here.
5. Here
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 120#p76338 I asked Charles for
details about his crater impact theory and how his theory could produce large craters on small objects, like asteroids etc, as I had previously thought that the lightning impact theory seemed best to explain such things.
6. Next at
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 120#p76377 Charles said: 1. he was intrigued by some of the possible evidence of
lightning-carved features on Mars in the video, The Lightning-Scarred Planet, Mars; 2. Cook's evidence suggested an
impact on the ice sheet; 3. a thermonuclear explosion on a
small iron asteroid may not blow it apart; and 4. something irrelevant here about compressive ionization in small bodies.
7. Then I asked about the
Carolina Bays,
crater chains and Thornhill's crater
shatter cones theory and Charles answered at
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 120#p76424, which included his explanation of
central peaks in craters.
8. Next at
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 120#p76430 Charles posted info about a
recent impact crater in Russia from some years ago I think.
9. Then I asked about
meteor shockwaves, Cook's theory about the
ice sheet impact and upside-down
shatter cones, which Charles answered at
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 135#p76555 and said he didn't understand why the
second sonic boom heard from aircraft is as loud as the first one.
10. After I asked more about upside-down shatter cones and about a new crater on the Moon compared to Comet Tempel 1 and electrical features of comets, Charles answered at
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 135#p76714, discussing
underground lightning from impacts, commenting that the
Moon crater looked like a fake, saying what seemed right and wrong about Thornhill's comet model with respect to
Tempel 1, but I think he didn't give enough consideration to the evidence of
electrical erosion on the comet.
11. In the next posts
Brant commented on electrical erosion on Tempel 1, then I did and then I asked some more questions and Charles answered here
http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/v ... 135#p77435 and here's a quote:
Lloyd wrote: What seems most important to explain is
why electrostatics is more common (in your view) than is electrodynamics.
CC: I don't think that there is a "reason" for this per se -- it's just an observation. I got onto this track not by looking explicitly for electrostatics, but in the interest of understanding the electrodynamic assertions. After all, to get a current, you first need a charge separation, so you have to figure out how the necessary force was applied. Once you get the potentials, then you can evaluate the release thereof, in electric currents. So I'm saying that in the Sun, compressive ionization stores the potentials, and these are released as arc discharges, which produce the light that we see. So it's both -statics and -dynamics. By contrast, most EU theory has the -dynamics, but the charge separation mechanism wasn't identified, so they ain't got their -statics on yet.
Lloyd wrote: Do you regard the apparent
EDM evidence on Mars etc as electrodynamics?
CC: The scalloped trenches can't be explained any other way. But that doesn't mean that I understand what could have set up EDM on this kind of scale.
Lloyd wrote: Do you think a
close approach of another planet would produce such EDM effects?
CC replied that the best candidate for that seemed to be a close encounter with a
high-velocity stray planet.