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Old 15-November-2001, 03:41 PM
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Quote:
On 2001-11-15 10:07, JayUtah wrote:

3. How do humans survive at the top of a rocket? The space shuttle is fairly well isolated from the heat of its boosters, but no so with Saturn and its command module. At launch they had to spray lots of water on the launch pad to keep the concrete from cracking. Metal is a great conductor of heat. What kept the astronauts cool? Did they have a zillion air conditioners in the command module?
By the same reasoning, a guy operating a blowtorch or a flamethrower has serious problems. Simply, the heat is being thrown out away from the spacecraft, not towards it.

I won't even bother to mention the millions of pounds of cryogenic liquids between the first stage engines and the spacecraft - I think the greater issue would be how to keep the astronauts warm under the circumstances, not cold.
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