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A comment on Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico. Parent comment

Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by notact on Thursday June 06, 2024 @11:54AM (#40598917)
I'm not sure why people are misunderstanding my question as "Why not bring more fuel and burn the rockets in reverse". I am simply asking: why not reenter the atmosphere at a shallower angle, spreading the atmospheric braking friction over a longer period of time, which I'd expect would allow more time for the accumulated heat to radiate away before it becomes catastrophic.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by mrandish on Thursday June 06, 2024 @12:04PM (#40599062)
I'm no expert but I think reentering at a shallower angle results in "bouncing off" the atmosphere. So, even if you did it multiple times like a rock skipping on water, you'd have to have extra fuel to counter the bounce "up" and go back down for each skip. Thus, back to the same "bring more fuel/weight to orbit" problem.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by rtkwe on Thursday June 06, 2024 @01:06PM (#40599817)
Any heat you see is velocity lost to the craft will eventually hit the atmosphere again. I think the main reason is that the skip and the second reentry is way less predictable than doing the descent in a single pass so for predictability of landing agencies much prefer to do a harder more controlled reentry.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by pixl97 on Thursday June 06, 2024 @12:04PM (#40599061)
Gravity is one you are still being pulled down.

The other is at too shallow of angle at high speed you bounce off like skipping a stone off the surface of a lake.

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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by jaggederest on Thursday June 06, 2024 @02:36PM (#40600820)
What makes you think they aren't already taking the shallowest possible descent?

Once you start touching the atmosphere, it very quickly becomes deterministic. There are a limited number of descent profiles that actually get you to the ground, and believe it or not, starship as far as I can tell is actually taking a "shallow angle" and spreading the atmospheric braking friction over the largest possible time. A steeper entry would melt every conceivable material

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