|  Edward Cheung | ||||| Saturday, March 09, 2002 - 07:20 pm
The ascent (launch) phase is not as thermally stressful as the re-entry phase. This is because your objective is to convert almost all of the stored chemical energy in the propulsion system to kinetic energy. On the other hand, during re-entry you want to shed that speed by converting it to heat. This is when the cabin is reported to get 'warm', but I have no details beyond that. |
