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Comment by mjhay | Hacker News Reader

> The CIA started feeding flawed shuttle designs — NASA rejects — to the Soviet spies, which they passed off as new “improvements.” It worked. Included in the phonies were outdated heat shield designs that could have risked the spacecraft burning up on reentry.

They could have just given them the updated designs. Those risked burning up on reentry too (and of course did in the case of Columbia).

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Yeah, joke's on NASA, the whole program and all the designs were flawed.

Now we know it is a feature, not a bug !!

You've probably heard of the ceramic tiles on the Space Shuttle and how they had to inspect each one. And the story about the Soviets using a pencil instead of the US "space pen".

Somewhere I read about an early space capsule that had ablative shielding made of hardwood, oak or something several inches thick. "Carbon fiber composite", right? The way I remember it, it was said to work well because the wood was dense and didn't just burn up; instead it slowly carbonized. If you've ever made a fire with a large log, it makes sense. It has to get really hot to catch, and then it lasts a long time.

But I remember it as being attributed to the USSR, and when I search the internet now, I get hits saying it was a story about the Chinese space program that might be apocryphal.

It's important to note that pencils are terrible in space and a pen that worked in space was necessary (having graphite dust floating around in all your electronics is generally considered poor form). The pen was developed by someone interested in solving this problem, and NASA bought some, for obvious reasons. So did the Soviets.

If you squint really hard Wood is a carbon fiber composite.

Sort of.

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