David Cooper

That's the one.

and a professor at york university to discuss all things space jesse what a pleasure it is having you back on the show why thank you so much it's great to be back have you been having a lot of fun talking about space this entire mission i have i've missed you you are uh you normally come on the show you've been away for a few months heads down in the books teaching students that are somehow more important than me uh i'm not upset but i am glad you're back how you've been

The nundergrads.

All right.

So walk me through re-entry with a spaceship, because this is not a trivial thing.

When we wave our hands through the air, we don't feel it, but air causes an incredible amount of friction.

And so when things enter the atmosphere, whether it's an asteroid or a spaceship or whatever...

they get super hot.

And this is not a trivial problem for like, I don't know, physicists, spacecraft designers, aeronautical spatial engineers to do.

Did I get any of those words right?

Now, you could load up like double your fuel and slow down and have a rocket shooting in reverse.

But that would be an incredible waste of fuel.

So they use the air to slow down.

That's right.

The problem is as the air hits the thing, it heats up the ship to like what, 3000 degrees Celsius, which is balmy by anyone's.

Am I going to shock you right now when I throw some letters at you?

PV equals NRT.

I remember that from school for anyone who was totally cross-eyed as I say that.

As you change various properties of gas, certain things change.

And the T is temperature.