"Anni" wrote in message
...
OK if the shuttle is going the same orbital velocity required to get at
into
orbital velocity.
Then cannot it be slowed down while in orbit where you would not need a
massive amount of energy to slow it down from 22700mph if done over a few
days which I take it is its approximate speed while in orbit
Could this work?

No. It would take far too much fuel. Far more than could be carried
aboard the shuttle. The shuttle may appear weightless because it
is in freefall, but it still retains its 100 tons of mass. Momentum
is mass times velocity and 100 tons of mass times 17,500 mph
(or thereabouts) is a hell of a lot of momentum and would use
an entire external tank's worth of fuel to counteract.

And if it was slowed down could they not use parachutes to
keep it from reentry problems?

The problem here is that the parachutes would be useless until the shuttle
was deep into the atmosphere. If the shuttle slowed down sufficiently it
still drop like a rock and continue accelerating until it entered the
atmosphere
at excessively high speeds - far too high to deploy a parachute. Besides,
try, for a moment, to imagine the stresses on parachutes trying to slow
down a supersonic 100 ton space shuttle. Imagine the size and weight of
the parachutes involved.