PB666

Probably cheaper to extract it in space, what you call an aluminum drop on Mars . . . . . . .a bomb without an explosive charge. Good for dusting up those solar panels or occasionally upgrading the CEO who decided to settle on Mars. You could make them into aluminum parachutes, of course they would have to be resmelted on the ground.

Better yet can we just leave Space X's Mars dreams out of the thread, it seems to permeate all threads ad nausea and has been rehashed over and over again. Well the RL10b-2 which only ways 277 kg is 13.6 ft long about the same length, and 7 feet across (about 1 foot less wide). Maybe the presenter does not understand too much about rocket engines. Size is not a useful metric, thrust, ISP, expansion ratios, chamber pressure and mass are.

Dyson swarm is impracticable because there is no resource that can be drawn to build it. And even if there was we don't have a power supply capable of moving it. Efficiencies on all types of generators would have to improve markedly. All of Arthur's arguments are based on a pretense that if we had an unlimited supply of hydrogen, a perfect fusion-electric generator . . . . . we could have this that and the other. Its one of those if and if and if and if then arguments. The failing of any one aspects and the whole thing becomes impossible. For a Dyson sphere to work you need 1. Fusion (much much more power produced than required to operate the reaction) 2. Greater than 50% efficiency in the heat conversion to power (we can maximally at current convert 30% in space and this may not suffice to keep a fusion reactor operating) 3. A source of reaction mass (e.g. argon, xenon, magnesium) 4. An abundant source of hydrogen (Don't say Earths oceans) 5. An abundant source of structural mass that is not deep within a gravity well.

Nothing if time sped up by a factor of 3, if it was proposed 40 years ago, and if we dollars grew on trees.

But on Earth our bodies are the limiting factor, largely, on Mars the risk of exterior forces are the limiting factor. (e.g. sublimating, radiation, exposure to erosive martian soils, being crush while trying and failing to leave a gravity well) On Earth the equivilent would be risk of beging killed in an accident, risk of asbestos exposure, risk associated with smoking and industrial pollution. The risks are much lower. Apples and oranges.

Sure, last nights episode had Kick being prosecuted by a girlfriend wearing a miniskirt. Prior to the trial she gave most of her case away to the defendent. Talk about a conflict of interest, even in 1966, that would have been a mistrial. After the trial was over she stood in front of the crew, said she was glad she lost and kissed him. Not a good role model for women.

With our current understanding of gravity and entropy it would be hard either rigid, particular, inverted doesn't matter. Arthur is presenting idealized scenarios of space colonization. The basic problem is that most of what a Dyson sphere will be growing crops and sunlight is a benefit, except the green component has to be removed. But he shows planes floating around the star. In reality you would want either cylinders that can rotate (or artificial gravity) or spheres (variable artificial gravity). Its simply easier to pressurize a sphere than a flat plate. Solar panels would pipe power to into the sphere and else radiators would radiate the heat. Its all problematic because as it grows in size its progressive harder to get rid of the heat. He also makes claims of Dyson spheres harvesting the hydrogen from the star and using it for fusion. Of course first you have to have fusion that is much more power efficient relative to todays fusion, and, on top of that you would need to put a huge magnetic field around the star causing it to degas at the poles, and then some how get scooped up. The solar panels are also endanger close to a start due to the electro-magnetic intensities of ion storms. And on might want to have an interior belt of ion capture, providing fuel for putative fusion. Again, before you can think about Dyson aggregates you first need to get into space and bring asteroid and comets together in such a way you can harvest minerals and gases, Dyson would be way late in a sentients evolution.

For that matter everything is a dead man walking . . . . .100 flights . . . . . .and when I see it I might believe it. [Note once again the thread was hijacked]

Its all dependent on the contractors building the service module. I would not count on it launching on time. There is already an ongoing investigation.

Orion and its service module have been under construction for the better part of a decade the service module is still under construction by the ESA having begun construction in 2015. The SLS began construction also is 2014 the first launched in 2019.

Frankly, Samantha Carter on SG1 was a better role model for women. I am not old enough and not from the deep south as to have made the distinction of black/white. {When I used to stay over in Louisiana Soul train was one of my favorite program}. I guess there is a psych profile on that sort of behavior. Oh, I'm sure these are just things on the short list. By and large if I were a captain the first thing I would do is send out a probe to get a look-see before I did anything. So the extrovert . . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Inventory#Personality_dimensions

Again this gets to the motivations of the Authors. I know people who have published in Science or Nature simply so that they could have the notoriety to get a better job. Once upon a time I heard this "yeah, I just published an article in Nature, don't read it, its crap" pointing to a more relevant paper on the topic. The problem is that only so much good science can become of having your materials and methods section in your figure legends. There is good stuff, White's publication of Ardipiticus ramidus (after a very long wait) was good quality and created all kinds of questions that need to be created. When the big guys are compelled to offer big space, but when authors are forced to scale back a decent work to the size so that its more or less a pointer to other work. In many instance, and I don't know if its still true, the 'primary literature' is nothing more than a synopsis of literature published elsewhere and in more field specific journals with one new image added. More or less secondary literature mascaraing as primary literature. There is nothing false about this, but it is kind of a deception, because what you are doing is holding back that last small experiment so that you can glorify all your other work in a special place. Is it better than selling big books that sell only one opinion and that don't have peer review? yeah. At least in my specific field I cannot think of a single paper published in the last 20 years that reflected fairly the state of the science in Nature or Science. There have been tangential papers. You know what got up my crawl is the Benviniste Affair in 1987-89 where Nature basically absolves themselves of responsibility, but the leading experts were arguing your referees should have been arguing that the work was simply too controversial to have been published in the format that got published. Everyone was laughing at Nature because each had their own experience with the Journal. It was a big public hoot and hollering contest. In as much they stated the reason they published because they perceived it to be fore-front research. . .but also thats they reason they got such a huge backlash, because of people who sent MS to Nature get a summary reject letter ('our journal is currently not interested in this type of work). That was in my field so I am very much aware of people saying, 'my work was much better and the would not even consider my work [snicker]' . Some of that work that was attempted to be published was what we now call 'biologics', those miracle drugs, highlytargeted antibodies, that treat cancer and autoimmune diseases . . .rejected. Sour grapes, but in a good way it broke them of the habit of wanting to publish in coffee table science magazines. Nature and Science have both said on occassion that there review process was thorough and at other times there were problems that they corrected. But the retraction statistics basically points to the fact that its the same-ole same-old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection Tousche but here again this is a chat forum. If I were to use my social vices to push something unfairly to the forefront of the science discussion, that would be unfair would it not. In science your best friends are the harshest critics close to you, the worst place to be criticized is after you published others around you knew was bad stuff. BTW, I am egalitarian in once sense you are not, I consider BIG the best from each field, the best journals from Each field. I have been a big fan of both the Journal of Human Evolution and the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, they make false steps also, but fewer.

There are profound insights here, BUT . . . . . I don't live in the world that I think should be but the one that exists. Philosophically there are several implicit issues here and I will try to unmuddle them as scientifically as I can, because they deserve to be deconvoluted and discussed. We all share the same goal here, to see human-kind advance themselves and in particular advance themselves in space. Its been a long way . . . . . Philosophically to start with when Okkam postulated his razor he had no inclination about science or the scientific method, he just wanted to curtail the use of ad-hoc arguments [this is a hat-tip to our moderator since he does not like my commonly use perjoratives] in theology. As western theology self-divided itself into physical sciences and pure theological arguments, science adopted the razor as a support for the scientific method (which evolved in its current form much later). The problem he was dealing with was not about reality but perception. . [if you want to seek perception you should watch the Susskind's 1st lectures Quantum Entanglement and QM (part of a 7 part series on physics <-free) but also Carlo Rovelli's lecture on Time, philosophically this says everything . . if you don't you wont understand much of what I say] . . the way we perceive the world and then try to explain the world in a context we already believe to be true with generally a primitive understanding of the underlying reality. In that time it was a largely ethnic oral traditions. None the less, there were people, who in deep reflection found ways to question these 'truths'. They are not questioning the traditions, first they were interrogating themselves and it is not surprising that the first questions arose from the clergy (there are much older and deeper references). Gregor Mendel is a perfect example of when given to thought comes up with profound understandings of nature. Society has shed itself largely of these prejudices we have not exactly preserved the benefits. This discussion is not about science, it effects science, yes, but it is not about physical science, science can only explain the roots of the perception error, the scale at which we perceive the universe and the way in which our brains integrate information. There are so many competing senses out there . . . the question you have to ask is what should people be interested and how do you inspire their interest. At the same time you ask the question, you have to know what is dividing those interest. And these divisors are not benign, the distributors of information are very well knowledgeable on how to take advantage of peoples emotions as distributors have always been. One competing sense is that everyone ignores space altogether, this could happen. Imagine this scenario, everyone is given a free handheld device, we are all connected. In a process of displaying the right sets of images we are turned to websites that constantly ping our adrenal glands and keep us qlued into 100 so sites (none particularly having to do with space). The beast you are dealing with is not Musk, its the human mind, we still carry these pain/pleasure centers that evolved as we crawled out of some primordial ocean. Its exactly the same thing Okkam was dealing with not only in his colleagues but in his own mind. Socrates, after all was right about Athenian society, but also true, keeping his mouth shut would have kept him alive.[Coughing very loudly] The psychological side of the proclivities argument is what qualifies as addictive behavior and what qualifies as rational behavior and also is there ever truly a completely rational set of behaviors. And again its looking more and more that we are easily prone toward addictive behaviors but also there is a commercial sector out there that is adept and keen to exploit them . . .we need an internet Okkam. In this light, how do you get kids interested in space and science but even more importantly (as noted above) how do you teach them to become abstract thinkers, to think outside of their predisposed sensibilities (break the primordial umbilical cord). Science is a means of seeing irrationality, but it is not a immunization against irrational behaviors. Hundreds of other adrenal pinging things (randomly some of them maybe space related) also have our interests. I don't know if there is a best way to revive space interest, but I do see out on the horizon that there are easy ways that can destroy space science. Alternatively, I see a number of small (thrill seeking?) groups trying to build their own multi-chemical rockets; this is not an amateur sport . . there could be harmful ways of channeling interest. Minimally some of these new-space companies should have R&D apprenticeships that sponsor the small discovery market so that people who are interested enough to build their own rockets have a place that they can go and learn from professionals how to safely build and test. I am not kidding, I have seen a couple of people killed in the most horrific ways from playing with explosives (one of them lost his face and a third survivor lost his foot). Their behaviors were irrational. Redox reactions produce large amounts of energies in very unpredictable ways. Certainly launching a steam rocket to prove the earth is flat is irrational. Again if they are doing this for You-tube hits and popularity . . . . . . . not better than Space X. [Note the inequity] But there is a deeper fundamental problem, we know, physically, what the limit to chemical energy is, we also have nearly perfected efficient energy transformation into light and information (if we so desire), but the problem that we need to study is not something you can do at home. This is a problem of social complexity, the more complex a system becomes the more one needs increasingly complex solutions to add ordered complexity. We need young people who are willing to dive deeply into the fundamentals of the universe and then apply them to RL problems including space. It is my experience that most of these are not romantic or you-tube worthy. The second philosophical underlies the fade of space interest of the public sector. This has been discussed ad-nausea here so I will not rehash the problem. NASAs funding relative to GDP has steadily been falling since the late 1970s, and its not just NASA its also NSF and NIH (relative to GDP since the mid 1980s). The reflex is that we have to change the cost of doing science (very expensive now-a-days because of all the certifications and regulations added) or change who and how it is funded, or more simply move science elsewhere. Systemically for the west this is problematic, because we are competing against societies where science is evolving rapidly and increasingly funded (and this maybe the solution, evolution and kin selection). Once you do something with government money there are a whole bunch of rules that come into play, largely intended for big industries are big law enforcement that are extremely inefficiently handled (or mandated and largely unfunded or defunded) at the research level. Space X can take advantage of this by moving parts of its operation out of the public sector. This is not a SpaceX problem. Part of the space problem (see below) is that we hit a thermodynamic chemical energy wall.. You need 11,300 m/s dV to leave earth orbit, and our chemical rockets have exhaust velocities of 4500 m/s. There are several reason this problem has stuck to us. First our sense of risk in the Post WWII period was alot lower than current risk, and the two shuttle disasters created questions about whether other interests were being placed before NASAs primary interest. But there are deeper problems than that, we have been resting on our laurels with regard to the entropy problem as it pertains to space. One could almost argue given the two pioneer and voyager missions, we have back-stepped (or side-stepped). Entropy makes space (us) both possible and modern space hard. To understand entropy you have to understand that pure propulsion F = 2 * power * efficiency/Ve (stating this for light N = power/3E8 m/s),. If you set Efficiency as it starts from power at the power plant down to the drive (see fine print below) we get a sense of how important management is. To be very mass efficient you need alot of net power. This makes everything harder, more risky and potentially unpopular (nuclear impulse propulsion). Some have called the propulsion problem the tyranny of the rocket equation. Ultimately it limits space travel to small fractional C and generally low acceleration. The general public does not grasp the problem as a whole. Before KSP, i didn't. It was through playing with my creations and making them as RL as possible that the problem becomes apparent. [Nuclear is a solution that bad entropy management thwarts; those ships overheat and waste >70% of their power, in that they also expose equipment and passengers, unnecessarily, to higher levels of radiation. Avoiding fusion because even if you had fusion you could not launch it into space and also land fusion on Mars (not without a retro-propulsion-fuel depots orbiting Mars). We can think about the entropy problem like this, if you can build at 10% efficiency a 1 kw reactor with a certain sized intrinsic radiator generating 100 w of power and wasting 10% on cooling - - - > 90 watts. You can build a 2 kw reactor at 55% efficiency and getting 1095 watts of power. You can build a 4 kw at 77.5% efficiency, 3 kw net electric power. At 99% efficiency you can build a 99KW reactor and get 98KW of power. Again if you are talking about efficient electric propulsion that is a starter, but what you really need is millions of KW. So that is the entropy problem in a nutshell.] The fundamental philosophical question of space and space science. Entropy is about time (or vis versa) and both are about quantum gravity. The greatest enemy of long term spaceflight is the inability to manage entropy. If we do not learn about fine-scale structure of space (i.e. the quantum-classical resolution problem) then the applied fundementals will be harder, more random. The sci-fi warp drive, wormholes, etc are tantamount to promotion of false understandings, in lieu of good understanding of spacetime we instead conjecture about possibilities in imagined spacetime.[tip of the hat to Carlo Rovelli] We will find it more difficult to manage heat in space and interstellar may never be a thing without sustained progress in theoretical physics. Understanding this problem lies the potential solution to global power production, efficiency, conservation. It is the same thing with living on Mars. The limiting resource is energy, how to make it where it is needed most and how to conserve it. How do we get to this understanding, building 10 more Ligo experiments on the surface of the Earth? We need better and cheaper access to space. SpaceX is an economic forcing sprite. But it is current only superficially attacking the basic problem, which i defined above . . .but its better than no attack at all or the random walks we are currently in. Cannae also needs to be fully tested in space, not because of what it can do, but what it can teach us. So for the sprite to succeed in space it will have to tackle a new set of problems, one that will require it to seek expertise well outside of the physics that it is used to dealing with, so the hope is that Musk has enough knowledge of physics (I think he does) to push also those boundaries. Entropy is as relevant in space as it is on Mars, Ceres, Europa, whatever you chose . . . .nuclear will be close by and needs to be efficient, ideally fast breeder reactors with no waste, safe. So that it really doesn't matter where you test the systems, just as long as you are separated from the Earth's generous heat sinks. [Noting again the comparison] So let me point my finger at some others (Arthur) making hypey statements, because Musk is not alone, just more popular. Fusion electric power is not a thing, and even if fusion was a thing, it needs to become 3 magnitudes more net efficient at heat conversion. By the very fact we are talking about . . it has barely enough energy output to sustain the fusion reaction . . .means that this is generations away from being a solution . And really I think we lack a clear understanding of the fundamental thermodynamics is required. If we did we might find out that its impossible or we might find it has limited utility. Who is going to push these entropy based systems to their efficiency limits . . . Boeing, ULA, Northrup-Grumman, RSA, Morton-Thiokol, Lockheed Martin, ESA, NASA, CERN . . [note all the comparisons]. What are their vested interests at seeking out more efficient power systems for space-craft and are they dutifully progressing on those interests? Clearly we need more motivated people working on problems and sometime it is the interloper that stirs the pot. Critique is unbounded, once you start on SpaceX it fairly diffuses outward by comparison. Case in point the discussion between Doug Ellison and Elon Musk points to two different perspectives of how space should be done. One perspective is elitist and the other one is populist, there is harm in extremes of both perspectives. Whether or not you think ULA is a good company, they do not, given their preferential contract obligations, have any profound reason to make their organization that competitively undermines itself; that only comes with the threat of increased outside competition and recognition in the public sector. Its not a pretty way to do things, but it is the way western space interests are currently compelled. In this environment competitors are known to conflate. These are three areas that I have divided this problem up, but all three come back to the issue of glittering personalities and popularity how to manage them in the public space, who is really to blame? I stop watching the news and tossed my handheld 2 years ago, dumped my google search engine . . . . . . .Musk is only a sprite, there are millions. Some better most worse. Think about chugging though all the media, Snap chat, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Tumbler, etc all day long just to find the latest hype . . . . .is this not just feeding the monster, who is the monster us or them.

No because he knows how to stir greater interest in those who believe there there is some immediate (broadly speaking) inevitability about it. [snip] If you ever talk to someone who has been interviewed the general response is what was shown on TV or video is taken out of context and not what was meant. Even if you point this out to the subscriber, clearly and beyond all doubt show the flaw in the subscription, then enamor becomes more important than the substance . . ."well I don't care". If you want to neutralize the fantasy first you have to alter the desires in society to be deceived (its a noticeably larger problem). Let Musk have his dreams, can't be worse than the status quo, really, the current state is pretty bad. Ultimately it may not be better, but we will learn something in the process. But also note the other day when his core went splashing into the drink and his announcers danced around the failure, and then you can see through the 4th wall . . . that stoking the fire of interest is indeed an active and not a passive process . . .and we especially are part of the process. Musk did not create the hype in KSP/Science and Spaceflight . . we created that hype ourselves.

Captain Kick would be spending alot of time in the HR office learning what title 7 meant. Dr McCoy 'green blooded vulcan' would definitely inspire an interoffice memo on interracial sensitivity. Lets see, what else. Deanna Troi definitely she has a ton of HIPAA violations. (violation of patient privacy). That Yeoman definitely has her hands all over the captain, again another title 7 reorientation meeting. Zipping in and out of occupied systems without as much as an invitation, that would be trespassing. Yelling at junior officers on a civilian situation (often uncalled for) definitely HR material. Ta'Pal seducing commander Tucker and the ships D'nobulin doctor, as a higher ranging officer . . .sexual harassment. Bringing 3 Orion women on board wearing little more than bikini's and taking over the ship . . . .that would be a violation of dozens of misconduct rules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 I watch some of the old reruns and laugh, like that didn't just land such-and-such and early retirement. But then again if you watch old Hollowood movies, much of the 'courting' qualifies today as assault.

Somehow I don't think one of these video links is going to last very long here. Fanfiction blink.

Oh I would put even more physically than that. Given that an efficient launch from Earth is going to begin at the bottom of the gravity well, even a fully filled vessel will need 4000 dV to intercept Mars, another 500 dV - 1000 dV to land and 4500 dV to reach orbit along with 1500 dV to return to Earth, there is near physical impossibility for a rocket with chemical propulsion ISPs (<500 sec) to both break into Martian orbit land, lift off and return to Earth. Unless some sort of additional provision (Staged fuel, fuel drops, etc) there is a general presumption at this point that any one who travels to Mars will either die in transit, in attempting to land, in trying to survive on Mars or desperately trying to return to Earth. If you provide (give) that these are not colonizers, just travelers or career scientist who will retire back to Earth . . .then 100% fatality rate as it stands at the moment. Nothing that Musk has disclosed so far changes that. The reason is that while he claims he will send robot ships first to process methane and O2 from the martian surface, there are no details that a safety engineer might want to validate the process. So as its stands right now based on the technology we have, 100% fatality. If you are sending elderly astronauts there as an explicit one-way trip, then the fatality rate would be considerably lower because we can depreciate the rest of their lives versus alternative death risks (like say like fall injuries on Earth or this kind of thing). Again, this assumes that aid packages reach them in a periodic manner and they don't otherwise starve to death, dehydrate, suffocate, or become infected with bacteria because the waste disposal systems fail. To change the paradigm on Martian survival as NASA explains it we need something tangible not vaporware.

There is this big silvery object with surface features that floats through the night sky over a monthly cycle (come to think of it the word "month" might be named after the cycle) and you can practice landing and taking off all you want. I hear, conspiracies aside, its been done 6 or so times before. Jokes aside, its not even the the grasshopper stage.

Maybe so . . . . . If you use the latest electronics you are asking for problems. If you run all your systems on Raspberry Pi then you could have 1000s of the stockpiled for little or no cost. I have heard this from electrical engineers, the stuff they keep in their homes is the old stuff. Typical off the shelf electronics are cheap and are cheap. If you thing Mars is hard, how hard is interstellar. Of course if you are going to construct things on Mars you will have to have a pressurized workshop (preferably deep underground0 where one can use step pressure gradient on rather large doors.

tl, dr generally you didn't appreciate someones opinion. Rovelli's interview is not that long and it is an interesting critique. Peer review has just a whole bunch of problems. I have probably reviewed hundreds of manuscripts in my career, what would be called a super referee. One of the biggest problems it the expert players wont referee a paper unless its a friends or colleagues. I have many a monday morning meeting that starts like this 'we just go the 2 referees comments on these papers and they don't seem correct can you . . . ' . .and almost all cases the referee did not even read the paper, just the abstract. Figures are missing axis titles, figure legends, all kinds of things that you would need to referee. But more importantly the miss things like there is no materials and methods section, or a one sentence reference to 3 other papers. However, I will never have to referee another paper again, The review process really depends on the quality of the journal, if its a top ranked field specific journal with a top ranked editor (<-- editorial board generally do nothing) then chances are most bad papers will be screened out. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/28/science/retractions-scientific-studies.html http://iai.asm.org/content/79/10/3855/F1.expansion.html And if you think that Nature and Science have detected all the bunk, you should hear directly from the horses mouth. The reason that falsifiability is important is this. Suppose you write a paper (example) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11209053 such and such comes back 15 years later using the same materials https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27274055 If you don't create a method for what you are doing that is clear, concise and amenable to someone else repeating it, then of what value is your result. Where would we be if Max Planck fudged on his numbers to get the Plancks constant that he thought should exist. He had no earthly idea how important his constant was, it permeates now literally all of quantum mechanics. What if he had said this is not the real constant, the real constant is obscured by a large number of parallel universes? That's not what they did, in many cases they would come up with theories and within 6 months be the most vocal critic of the theory. Quantum entanglement, Einstein partially discovered, he had difficulty accepting the conclusion. Why are there two Ligo experiments, why not just one, shouldn't one just be good enough. But thats the only way to validate a transient observation, have multiple observers. Rovelli's point is that good science is hard work.

Who owns Mars such that they could govern over it. The rules that apply are the rules of the high seas or Antarctica. Lots of people have died exploring the poles and taking risks on the high seas. If anyone does anything that incurs a social, political, or economic cost on another entity, the state which that entity resides is free to sanction the causal body.

Looks to me like we are diving into a deep pool of speculation. A 737-800 is more complicated than a 737-100 although weights are not terribly different. An airbus A350 is more complicated than a 747-100 even though the 747 is bigger. This is simply due to the fact that we have complicated miniaturized electronics that we did not have when 747-100 was designed in the late 60's. But even at that an old airline might be upgraded with new features, satellite telephone system, in seat entertainement systems, smoke detectors, . . . . . . . I could think of a BFS shell that is only slightly more complicated than an F9, I suppose that the refueler will be like this.

If you read the entirety of the interview with Rovelli he makes the point that all hypotheses should be falsifiable in order to be taken seriously. In fact that was the point we are taking string theory and MWI seriously even though they cannot be falsified. He refers to this as laziness . . . .IOW you come up with a hypothesis that cannot be falsified because you don't want to invest the time and money to get more background information (e.g. studying the results of Ligo, studying then event horizon around black holes, etc). I suppose it means that before such hypothesis should be treated seriously one should have walked the ends of the visible universe in search of alternative answers.

You don't want your passengers doing >8 g. The shuttle had more wing, and typically enter at an oblique angle, which means it lost alot of forward momentum. Apollo from what I understand had an initial angle (-5 to -6') that did not intercept the surface had a steeper entry angle because it could exit the atmosphere again. Shuttle had 6400 km horizontal = 174 km vertical (comes to 1.5' sure it was higher though) for shuttle with more rapid drop per distance at the end of the flight.

It does not appear to be a shallow trajectory, there would be tremendous g-forces on it. Still skeptical.