Pierce Nichols wrote:
Since an ablative heat shield is a one-use item for a specific mission profile, it's almost trivial to make sure that it's good enough to survive that mission.
It's the same issue as expendable rockets in general: how do you know that that specific one is good enough for its mission, without testing it (and thus using it partway up)?
Also, ablative heat shields tend to be one-piece units, which means that they are not particularly prone to falling off.
The shuttle's tiles are glued-on, multi-piece units. As I've heard it, tiles are routinely missing upon landing, though falling off at launch was a new one. _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
