🚀 go-pugleaf

In <C0pIL6.BwF@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>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.

The heat load, remember, is the integral of the heating rate.   
Gradual reentry is a two-edged sword.  The heating *rate* may
be lower, but you're travelling through the atmosphere for a
longer period of time, so the total heat soak is higher.  This
nose-first reentry was picked to minimize this total heat soak.

This is not the first time this type of reentry has been proposed
for a  manned spacecraft.  The High-Performance Space Cruiser, 
described in "High Frontier: A New National Strategy," also used
an ICBM-like trajectory.  The damn thing even looked like an
overgrown missile warhead, with the addition of a popup bubble
canopy for the pilot to use on orbit.