Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!husc6!rice!titan!phil
From: phil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Soviet and American Shuttles
Message-ID: <2008@kalliope.rice.edu>
Date: 15 Oct 88 22:25:03 GMT
References: <1574@nunki.usc.edu> <3020@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <1703@eos.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Reply-To: phil@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre)
Distribution: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Organization: Rice University, Houston
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In article <1703@eos.UUCP> steve@eos.UUCP (Steve Philipson) writes:
>In article <3020@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> david@beowulf.JPL.NASA.GOV (David Smyth) writes:
>>2) How fast do you thin the shuttle needs to go to get enough lift to
>>go UP?  Right now, the shuttle decends at about 100 feet per second
>>throughout the re-entry: The thing does NOT fly, it drops like a brick.
>>The wings just increase the manoeverability.
>
>   I've never seen a brick flare and land softly.  It may require a
>large amount of thrust to make it sustain altitude or climb, but it
>doesn't have to be flying extremely fast.

Quite right.  I watched this last landing very closely, and decided that
the shuttle can glide very nicely when it wants to.  After the flare and
on final approach, it looks like a regular plane coming in for a landing.
I believe that it "drops like a brick" not for aerodynamic reasons, but
because that's the only way to get the shuttle down to the right altitude
in a reasonable amount of time.

			William LeFebvre
			Department of Computer Science
			Rice University
			<phil@Rice.edu>