{"id":192176,"date":"2024-07-02T12:22:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/how-nasa-and-spacex-get-spacecraft-safely-back-on-earth"},"modified":"2024-07-02T12:22:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:22:32","slug":"how-nasa-and-spacex-get-spacecraft-safely-back-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/how-nasa-and-spacex-get-spacecraft-safely-back-on-earth","title":{"rendered":"How NASA and SpaceX get spacecraft safely back on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-nasa-and-spacex-get-spacecraft-safely-back-on-earth2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Water has a relatively low viscosity \u2013 that is, it deforms fast under stress \u2013 and it has a density much lower than hard rock. These two qualities make it ideal for landing spacecraft. But the other main reason water works so well is because it covers 70% of the planet\u2019s surface, so the chances of hitting it are high when you\u2019re falling from space.<\/p>\n<p>The science behind splashdown is complex, as <a href=\"https:\/\/weebau.com\/flights\/splashdown.htm\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">a long history proves<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In 1961, the U.S. conducted the first crewed splashdowns in history. These used <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/project-mercury\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Mercury reentry capsules<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Water has a relatively low viscosity \u2013 that is, it deforms fast under stress \u2013 and it has a density much lower than hard rock. These two qualities make it ideal for landing spacecraft. But the other main reason water works so well is because it covers 70% of the planet\u2019s surface, so the chances [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}