David Schat wrote:
jaffee wrote:
I don't want to diminish anything Rutan has done...<<<<
I'm no Rocket Scientist but don't orbital craft fire the motors in "reverse" to slow them down for re-entry? Couldn't the craft fire it's motor a bit longer and at full power to increase the decent angle to one that might permit the feather recovery?
They do, but I believe they do a burn that's just long enough to get their orbit to decay so that they start dropping into to the atmosphere. The shuttle does this, but it still re-enters at Mach 25. I suppose in theory you could do a burn long enough to drop out of orbit like a rock, but it would probably take a lot of fuel (enough so that I assume it's not practical).
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