Coolant [Spaceships]

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Tungsten heats up too quickly for that to be effective

I'm presuming they use Tungsten because it has 3x the density of Iron. This allows it to have a smaller cross section and carry more kinetic energy to the ground. I presume they would have some sort of protective coating, and maybe an ablative end cap for reentry; that combined with the long thin reentry profile, the idea is to not have them slow down too much in the atmosphere and thus not heat up enough to melt.