From: henry@spsystems.net   
      
   In article ,   
   Roy Stogner   wrote:   
   >> You missed what is probably the biggest issue:  can its heatshield handle   
   >> a deep-space reentry?  That is a *much* more severe thermal environment   
   >> than a LEO reentry.  For example, shuttle-style tiles are not up to it.   
   >   
   >Does it help if the vehicle doesn't try to reenter on it's first perigee?   
      
   Probably at least somewhat... but then you have other problems, like   
   repeated passes through the Van Allen belts and an aerobraking program   
   that's likely to take weeks.  (The initial orbit has a period of a week or   
   two, so if you're going to use more than a couple of passes, the earlier   
   intermediate orbits are still going to be fairly long.)   
      
   How much it helps would depend on the type of heatshield.  Some aspects of   
   lunar reentry are qualitatively different from LEO reentry -- it's not   
   just "the same thing only more of it" -- and this would affect different   
   technologies differently.   
   --   
   MOST launched 30 June; science observations running     |   Henry Spencer   
   since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending.        | henry@spsystems.net   
      
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