Water could replace spacecraft heat shield tiles

[Althalus]

Space scientists looking for new ways to cool spacecraft on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere are turning to one of the world's oldest coolants: water.

Existing heat-shield technology leaves a lot to be desired. In the 1960s Apollo rockets used a heat shield that burnt off slowly - but this is no good for reusable spacecraft like NASA's fleet of space shuttles. And the silica tiles the shuttle uses are fragile and prone to damage.

View: Full Article | Source: Yahoo News

[Halo_Jones]

Intresting article Al, but if they took water into space, then surely that would increase the weight for the takeoff and where would they store it?

As I understant it the Rocket breaks off during takeoff and all that is left is the shuttle, I can't see how it would be capable of holding a great deal of water.

[j6p]

The article gave me a thought. I was looking at the entire shuttle configured like an air conditioner. They could have a looping of tubes in the underbelly that have a gas circulating and vented at the top of the vehicle.

But I'm sure they thought of something like that already. I always thought the tile system that they came up with was flawed, I mean you take a 5+billion machine and stick hundreds of tiles on the bottom now if a few of these tiles come off BOOM the whole thing disintegrates. I never did like that idea and I'm glad that they are looking at alternative ways to vent the heat. Great article Alth.