Space Shuttle: Tiles

You've heard all this before about the shuttle tiles - but Top Men would like you to pay attention this time!

The white ones are the LRSI (low-temperature reusable surface insulation) and they're used where temps don't go over 1200 F. The black ones are the HRSI (high-temp... etc.) and they take care of temps up to 2300 F. They're baked in the worlds largest microwave oven.

Here's the crazy-complicated part. The bottom of the Orbiter is covered with almost 32,000 tiles. 32 thousand! Top Men would like you to get an idea of what that means by checking out this PDF file from NASA. Don't be fooled into thinking the large jagged lines are the tiles - you've got to zoom in to see them.

And did we mention that no two are alike! Oh, and they have to be placed so the gap between them is less than 0.065 inches. (That's only a few times wider than a human hair.)

(Top Men would also like to mention how much they like the term reinforced carbon-carbon. Reinforcing only one carbon would not be good enough for a space shuttle.)

Wohba!