The following is a link to NASA engineer Robert H. Daugherty's, Jan. 30,
2003 email to David H. Lechner.
The Shuttle's tires are designed to withstand over 1000 psi before
failure. But if one were to fail during decent, e.g., from overheating,
the resultant overpressure in the wheel well could reach 40 psi subject the
landing gear door to 250,000 pounds of loading. This "...would almost
certainly blow the door off its hinges, or at least send it out into the
slipstream... catastrophic. Even if you could survive the heating would
the gear now deploy? And/or also, could you even reach the runway with this
kind of drag."
http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/COL_landgear_email_030212.pdf
