Shuttle Landing
 

Here is what I don't get. During reentry it gets really hot from friction going so fast (17,000 MPH). So, why can't they take it slow? There must be some reason but I just can't figure it out.

Well, if you think about how much fuel it took to get them going that fast, I suppose it'd take that much to get them back down to a normal speed as well, so they let the atmosphere slow them down.

I think you are wrong...I don't believe it is because of fuel. If so, put a tank on the space station and pick it up while up there.

it has something to do with gravitation i think..they have to re-enter the atmosphere at a speed that will let the get around the gravitational pull so they can re-enter the earth's orbit without crashing into us..

|cool|

my son is in the back yard trying to see it.. as it's now landing in the desert. Nothing like Live Science Lessons

It takes 1 big & 2 small takes of fuel to get just the shuttle itself off the ground, so you want them to strap 3 more on plus probably another 2 or 3 to compensate for the weight of those, so maybe 9 total?

Of course, I really have no fucking idea :D

WOW Strap-on Shuttle Sex..

and it's DOWN!!! |bananna| |pink

Quite a good view on NASA TV :)

It is because of the fuel/cost issue, just as Greenie said.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc...9/eng99363.htm

Jim the shuttles slows down from about 18,000 miles an hour to around 15,000 before it hits the atmosphere and it burns off most of the speed on the way down. I don't think there is any way to get the needed fuel up in to space.

The fact that these things blow up on a regular basis keeps us from putting too much fuel on them or using nuclear power.

What I think is funny os that the onboard computers still have 64k RAM :)

I'll get excited about the space program when they shut it down and spend that money on earth.

What they really need is a warp drive.

I wonder what would happen if they shut it down and redirected all the money into finding new energy sources. Clean air, no troops in Iraq, Texans loosing billions.

|thumb my thoughts exactly uw!

Greenguy is right, as usual. The shuttle basically 'falls' back to earth, and since it has to be moving faster than 18,000 miles per hours just to be in orbit, it has to dump a ton of speed to be able to land on the earths surface at a few hundred miles per hour. It does that by rubbing against the atmosphere, which heats it up.

UW, I'm surprizef to hear you say such things, I would figure you would know that the tech spinoffs from space exploration have been probably the single largest driver of the US tech economy for the past 40 years. Everything technical we use, from computers in cars, to our computers, to the instruments in our hospitals, to cell phones, almost everything technical that affects our lifestyle and makes us so rich can be traced back to research done for space exploration.

So, that money IS being spent here on earth, only leveraged out a hundredfold to a thoudsandfold.

I know very little. That's one of the reasons I'm so useless. ;)

so true

|greenguy| |greenguy| |greenguy| |greenguy|

Burt Rutan figured it out. I couldn't find the article that shows exactly how he did it but this article has some info on his spaceship that won the prize for the first privately funded vehicle to go into space.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077811/

Ditto :)

I believe this is because it is actually sub-obital so it is not going so fast.

Cleo brings up a good point. It is 2005 for |buddy| sake...where's the Force Fields & Energized Shields?