Timeline for What are the top temperatures occurring during reentry?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 13, 2016 at 4:14 | answer | added | Nick T | timeline score: 7 | |
| Apr 30, 2016 at 4:41 | comment | added | Eliot G York | (Related Topic [space.stackexchange.com/questions/15013/…) | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 16:29 | comment | added | Luaan | Oh, of course. But that's what I'm talking about - as far as we can tell, asteroids are pretty much already refined - the impurities found in ore on Earth are much rarer in space (most notably, oxygen and sulphur). | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 12:10 | comment | added | SF. | @Andy: I'm exactly thinking about what -minimal- protection would be needed so that it wouldn't happen. | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 11:58 | comment | added | Andy | If you're talking about landing unprotected raw materials, bear in mind a lot of large meteors break up at altitude from deceleration and possibly thermal stress. So we can't just drop those from orbit. (May be relevant if you're talking about landing raw blocks of rock or anything that's not a processed ingot.) | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 11:07 | answer | added | Level River St | timeline score: 11 | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 9:50 | comment | added | SF. | @Luaan: Considering the delta-V, plus abundance of solar and other energy in space, I believe bringing ore to Earth is a misguided approach. It should be refined in space. OTOH yes, volume changes certainly are a concern, as is structural durability at the moment of impact into sea. | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 9:27 | comment | added | Luaan | It's still a big deal - it's the difference between getting the pure stuff ready to work and getting ore that needs to be refined. But in any case, there's little reason you'd care I guess. In the end, it's all about your descent profile - if you don't need to lose lots of speed quickly, you don't need "stressful" reentry (though there's limits to how simple unpowered objects can reenter). And don't forget that most stuff changes density with temperature - you wouldn't want your molten metal exploding out of the "spaceship" :D | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 9:11 | comment | added | SF. | @Luaan: I'm well aware of that. I was thinking about raw metals mined from asteroids. If the content melts, no biggie, it will solidify after splashdown. | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 9:07 | comment | added | Luaan | It's not about withstanding the reentry - the problem is protecting the contents. Making a heatshield that survives a few thousand degrees K is easy, but that's not going to help the weak meatbag inside who frowns at mere 300 °K :D The reason we use ablative shielding is because as the shield ablates, it takes the heat with itself. It's the same as cooling something with ice, which really is an low-temperature ablative heatshield :D | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 8:02 | vote | accept | SF. | ||
| Apr 29, 2016 at 7:50 | comment | added | SF. | @tpg2114: I was asking this, thinking of non-ablative heat shielding for cargo that is relatively immune to heat (non-burnable raw materials). It seems in all cases tungsten would withstand the reentry. | |
| Apr 28, 2016 at 23:32 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackSpaceExp/status/725829996678356992 | ||
| Apr 28, 2016 at 19:39 | comment | added | tpg2114 | At atmospheric re-entry speeds, it may not be useful to talk in terms of a single temperature. Non-equilibrium effects in the gas means there may be a translational temperature (what we normally think of as a temperature) as well as vibrational and electronic temperatures, all of which may be different due to the high speeds, high energies, and rarefied air. See this page for a discussion of the different models used. | |
| Apr 28, 2016 at 19:37 | comment | added | SF. | (but yes, Earth only, not necessarily manned.) | |
| Apr 28, 2016 at 15:14 | comment | added | SF. | @Andy: The best answer would contain an overview of these. | |
| Apr 28, 2016 at 14:23 | answer | added | Andy | timeline score: 18 | |
| Apr 28, 2016 at 13:12 | answer | added | Organic Marble | timeline score: 15 | |
| Apr 28, 2016 at 11:21 | answer | added | Hobbes | timeline score: 16 | |
| Apr 28, 2016 at 11:20 | comment | added | Andy | Earth only, and crewed spacecraft only? For example the galileo probe that entered Jupiter's atmosphere survived outrageous temperatures and accelerations.... | |
| Apr 28, 2016 at 10:15 | history | asked | SF. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |