CEV = Early Apollo plan?

In article ,
TVDad Jim wrote:
How did they reapply ablative material to that VA capsule? Did the
bottom unscrew? Did they have to drill out honeycombs like Apollo? I'm
trying to imagine how much chipping and drilling would be required to
plug a flight-ready heat shield on the back of that thing.

Most likely, you'd take the whole heatshield (including whatever its
backing structure was, e.g. Apollo's stainless-steel honeycomb sandwich
panel) off, and replace it with a new one.

If you were talking about a really high flight volume, it *might* start
being economical to recycle old backing structures, by stripping off the
remaining ablator. Not a particularly easy job. The fiberglass honeycomb
which contains the actual ablator would have to be removed too -- it does
some ablating itself, and besides, cleaning it out is impractical -- and
all in all, it would be quite a chore. Maybe some sort of chemical
etching could do it reasonably efficiently.

With updates in ceramics, would it be possible to build a tile-based
re-entry shield for a fall from the Moon?

It's questionable at best. The very nature of the problem changes
somewhat for a lunar reentry, with radiant heating from hot gases starting
to become significant, and the conditions are generally much worse.

Wasn't GT-2 a recycled ship?

Not at the time it was GT-2. :-) But yes, it was reflown on a test flight
for the MOL program, modified with a heatshield hatch.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

If you were talking about a really high flight volume, it *might* start
being economical to recycle old backing structures, by stripping off the
remaining ablator.

I suspect at high flight rates with ablative, it'd be easier and cheaper
to simply stamp out new, cheap shield assembly line fashion, and throw
the used ones away. Metal components could be melted down, but the
actual ablative amterials and the fiberglass honeycomb... uck. Just burn
'em.

As with many recycling programs, it sometimes works out that the most
economical and environmentally friendly approach is not to repair the
thing, but to bash it into tiny bits, meltt it down, and start again
from scratch. Things like old, physicaly broken electonics, busted TVs,
incredibly rusted cars, etc... just melt 'em down.

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