WolfRat wrote:
Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
"Oz Lander" wrote in
:

What would it take to slow
the shuttle down whilst in orbit, enough to allow it to re-enter at a
slower speed?

The same amount of fuel that was needed to accelerate it in the first
place, plus lots more to get that extra fuel up. To avoid all that,
spacecraft use the atmosphere for braking. They've been doing that
since the beginning of manned spaceflight, it's not specific to the
shuttle. They just accept the risk associated with that method as a
tradeoff against the extra complication of carrying those enormous
masses of fuel all along.

Regards



They could aero-brake from orbit slower but it would take
forever. If they launched an unmanned fuel source, docked
and then transfered fuel it could be done.

And put it in what and do what with it?

It took the jettisoned external tanks and engines to provide the
energy to get up in the first place and would take an equivelant
amount of energy to kill all your velocity and energy of position
in orbit to get down slowly.

--
Jim Pennino

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