Gel- Imagine you are going 12,500 miles per hour, at an altitude of approximately 40 MILES. It's so hot, the shuttle leaves a plasma trail behind it - this is what looks like a "contrail", but it's really superheated air.
During parts of re-entry, the temperature on parts of the nose and leading edge of the wings reaches 2,700 degrees F. These parts are covered by "reinforced carbon-carbon" ceramic. The underside of the orbiter is covered in heat-resistant tiles. There are thousands of them, individually applied. I've seen (at KSC) someone hold a tile in their hand while holding a blowtorch on it. But all it would take is a fairly small insulation failure for part of the orbiter skin to be exposed. Most of the orbiter structure is aerospace aluminum. The re-entry temperatures without insulation are more than enough to MELT aluminum. Making a fail-safe crew capsule would not be an easy task - anything that structurally-sound and heat-resistant would also likely be quite heavy. And you would need to be able to enter and exit the "capsule" to do any real work. -Ben At 12:28 PM 2/1/03 -0500, you wrote: >At 22,000 feet, all the foam in the world would not do you much good. > >-----Original Message----- >From: Angel Stewart [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 12:23 PM >To: CF-Community >Subject: RE: space shuttle columbia accident > > >*sniffles* > >They should have failsafe crew compartments with super foam stuff that >protects them if it crashes. > >0_0 > >-Gel > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Larry C. Lyons [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > >Gel, > >you have no idea of the complexity involved. NASA has a remarkable >safety record. We do not know what happened. I do not think we should >criticize until more is known. > >larry > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=5 Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
