when coming back from space, why do astronauts don’t just use a parachute all the way down?

Question

when coming back from space, why do astronauts don’t just use a parachute all the way down?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Imagine sticking your hand out a car window on the highway, you can feel the air pushing hard against your hand. Highway speed is about 110km/h, imagine doing that at 27,000km/h, which is the speed the ISS moves to maintain orbit. You’d burn up from the air friction.