🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ewright.726776389@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>... The Delta Clipper *is* shaped
>like a bullet.  It does not present its blunt surface (base) on entry.
>It makes a nose-first, high-angle-of-attack entry modelled after an
>ICBM-warhead trajectory.  This was chosen because of the large amount
>of data available from computer modelling of missile warheads.

Um, it may have shared a certain amount of design heritage with missile
warhead, but I'm pretty sure it does *not* share the trajectory, since
an ICBM-warhead trajectory involves retaining very high velocity down
almost to the ground.  (A certain amount of deceleration is inevitable
in thick low-altitude air.)  A spacecraft, e.g. DC, does almost all of
its decelerating at very high altitudes where the heat load is modest.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry