Ian said:
Peak Warming Man said:
NASA OHAS: What are we going to do with Bevan?
NASA Admin: We’ll give him another chance, we’ll let him design the toilet on Artemis, that should be simple enough.
When he’s done with the heat shield..
“Since the earliest days of human spaceflight, engineers have protected capsules from the extreme heat of re-entry with so-called “ablative” heat shields, made from material that’s designed to burn away evenly as the capsule scorches its way through the atmosphere.
To meet the demands of the reusable space shuttle, Nasa developed an incredible heat shield system made from ultra-light tiles of glass-coated silica fibres. While this heat shield had extraordinary thermal properties, it was also exceptionally fragile, and required exhaustive maintenance after every shuttle mission.
It was damage to this fragile and exposed protection system that caused the tragic loss of space shuttle Columbia in 2003. For the Artemis programme, Nasa has returned to the concept of an ablative heat shield.”
The Conversation