External command seat kerbonaut at reentry: will it burn?

[juvilado]

Will a kerbonaut without any vessel die upon reentry due to heat? Will it die in an external command seat?

Edited September 14, 2016 by juvilado

[Diche Bach]

Assuming you are referring to Kerbin, if you have the heat settings high enough, and if the altitude/orbital velocity are high enough, and assuming they are not protected by an ablator somehow: as far as I know yes, they will die. It's the nice thing about thick atmospheres, they burn up most of the junk that falls out of the cosmos.

If you put a command seat "behind" (on the radial/retrograde/"up" side of) a heat shield, then the command seat and Kerbal can survive no problem. But then you have to make sure the thing doesn't flip over in flight, i.e., that the face of the heat shield stays prograde during the descent.

 

Edited September 14, 2016 by Diche Bach

[DD_bwest]

if you can slow him down enough, some kerbals have survived the entire trip without even parachutes lol

[panzer1b]

Go in head first and you can survive a impact at over 100m/s into the ground.

Apparently the helmets are protected by a shield generator (and its rather hard to kill them if you go head first into the ground)...

As for heat, in 1.1 it almost always resulted in cripy kerbal (if you dont use a command seat connected to something that doesnt burn easily, not necessarily heat shield, but some part that has good heat tolerance).  So dont try to reenter a kerbal without any protection.  Also, reentering anything at 50km/s is instant death in 1.1 (texted that because i was in a danny mood)...