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Full Transcript (below)
9A. Q: What are the heat shield improvements you've seen over the years and what sort of heat shield designs do you think may be used in future spacecraft such as the Crew Exploration Vehicle?
Balboni: The materials used on the Space Shuttle are operating pretty near their – their maximum limits of temperature. And improvements that have been made have to do with the coating because all these materials rely – that that would be the RCC leading edge and also the tile materials on the belly of the Shuttle. They rely on the coating to survive these high temperatures. So, there have been improvements of the coatings over the years to make them not only withstand higher temperatures, but also just be tougher, mechanically, be stronger and tougher. And so, that's the kind of work that's been done in the past. But then what happens when you go to a vehicle that – like the CEV, which we think was gonna be similar to Apollo – to the Apollo capsule – the temperatures would get much too high for any of the materials that are being used on the Space Shuttle. And so, now you have to go to new materials. In fact, the temperatures are high enough that you have to go to what's called an ablating material. An ablating material is designed to slowly – you could say burn away in a controlled fashion, and in a way in which, the umm, this ablation actually carries away some of the heat from the surface and protects the surface from the superheated gases on top. (Phone rings). (1:21 SECONDS)