“We were interested in looking at the more durable systems,” Camarda told Ars. “The first thing I ever tested was actually an all-metallic shuttle wing leading edge, and it used heat pipes, and it was built by McDonnell Douglas. It was a competitor with the reinforced carbon-carbon, the passive leading edge system.” Ultimately, NASA went with the reinforced carbon-carbon heat …
Read More »With Starship, SpaceX encounters an obstacle that haunted NASA’s space shuttles
