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Scott is debunking ideas to dump deltaV before hitting the atmosphere, to avoid having to go through the rigors of reentry. This isn’t relevant to the discussio
by theptip 2y ago
Scott is debunking ideas to dump deltaV before hitting the atmosphere, to avoid having to go through the rigors of reentry. This isn’t relevant to the discussion; he’s not disproving the possibility of landing from orbit in a glider.
The existence proof here is the shuttle, which did indeed manage to glide from orbit.
The challenge is that you need some strategy to dissipate the kinetic energy on reentry. The approach that both the shuttle and these hypothetical gliders use is ablative heat shielding.
A glider manufactured in space and autonomously piloted would have a lot more design space to explore, since you don’t have the constraint that it has to be launchable on a rocket, and you can potentially spend years on successive aerobrake approaches if that is optimal.
- IshKebab 2y agoUhm yes he is. You didn't listen to the whole video did you?
- derdi 2y agoI listened to the whole video, and the parent understands this better than you do. The video doesn't say that gliders are impossible, period. It says that slowly gliding down, without a heat shield, is impossible. As the parent noted, the Space Shuttle proved that quickly gliding down with a heat shield is possible and very realistic. The video doesn't claim anything to the contrary, of course. It's a good and important point that the term "glider" needs to be qualified. But you failed to make this point.
- lupire 2y agoWhen the vehicle disintegrates on reentry like a shuttle sometimes does, who gets the platinum?
- theptip 2y agoAs I’ve continued to read I realize the shuttle didn’t have ablative tiles, rather reusable heat dissipation tiles. Better aerodynamics, so maybe our glider should use this approach; the Si and C required are present in asteroids, but manufacturing is space could be challenging.