• sm1dger@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Oddly, space is cold but spaceships tend to get too hot. Engines/electroncs/people give off heat inside the ship which gets trapped. You move heat by conduction, convection, or radiation, but because outside is a vacuum you cant disapate heat with the first 2 and are limited to the least effective radiation so the heat builds up

    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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      6 hours ago

      Yeah, a little known fun fact about the Shuttle is that the radiators were on the inside of the bay doors. On achieving orbit they had 4 hours to get the doors open or they would have to scrub the mission before the electronics overheated. The doors never failed and no mission was ever scrubbed for this reason though.