R
rdc058
Guest
<p>Hello everyone, I'm new here and I appologize if my title question is a stupid one.</p><p>See, this is something that has always nagged at me and I've not yet found an answer, and I'm just plain curious. It seems to me that having thousands of little specially shaped tiles each with it's own serial number corresponding to the exact location it goes on the orbiters fuselage nose and underside......is un-nescessarally complicated. Would it not make better sense to have the tile material shaped into larger pieces so there are MUCH fewer of them? I've often wondered why, .....that the orbiters underside.....as an example....could not consist of only 10 to 15 large-shaped sections of heat resistant material instead of (hundreds?)......of 5X5 inch pieces.</p><p> </p><p> Obviously there is good reason because it has worked all these years......I'm just wondering if something different had been explored in the begining of the STS program.</p><p> </p><p>Anyway, I just discovered this site and I suspect I'll learn a lot here! As an "arm-chair-space-buff"....I know VERY little and I promise not to be to much of a nuisance with goofy questions....I'll regulate myself to a lot of reading!<img src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-cool.gif" border="0" alt="Cool" title="Cool" /></p><p> </p><p>Thank you!</p><p>Russ</p>