Eli5: why can spacecrafts not be slowed down enough to red-enter the atmosphere without burning up?

Question

Eli5: why can spacecrafts not be slowed down enough to red-enter the atmosphere without burning up?

In: 228

Answer 1

They could, but the problem is weight. Getting them out of the atmosphere requires a *bunch* of fuel. If you add weight, the needed fuel increases as well.

Slowing it down would require working against gravity, aka more fuel. And that would be even more weight to carry that fuel out of the atmosphere as well.

So at the end of the day, it’s just a lot cheaper and easier to just plan for it to come in fast than it is to try and slow it down.