Space Lan

How does a spaceship come back to earth from outer space?

Can someone provide me an answer for the following question with details and if so, the equipment used to come back. Is it by the same spaceship or by the astronauts falling into the ocean inside a big ball thing? Someone please help.

Public Comments

1. it crashes into the ocean and then nasa picks them up by helicopter...
2. Well nowadays the use the space shuttle for rentry ( the one they go up in) They use orbital boosters till they can hit the earths gravatilnal pull and then the earth basically pulls them home and then landing gear comes out and they fly to where ever they are gonna land pretty much. The "ball" you are referring to is back in the apllo days when they would break away from the rocket and use small boosters to get them in the orbit of the earth and most cases would land in water but the had a parachutte to slow them down . I hope that will help=
3. Verrry carefullly. bah dump bump (cymbal tap) sorry.
4. From "outer space"--I presume you're not talking about returning from orbit--getting back isn't too difficult. You point your space craft at the earth and give it a little boost in that direction. It doesn't take too much. Eventually Earth's gravity will draw the craft to it. The problem is getting back safely. As a spacecraft falls towards Earth, it picks up speed. If it enters the atmosphere too fast, it can burn up. This is a problem even for the space shuttles. However, the shuttles are designed for air flight. Space ships are not. Spacecraft have no wings to slow their descent, so they have to turn their tails in the direction they're traveling and fire their rockets to slow them down. Now the problem is fuel. After traveling a few hundred thousand miles, the craft is probably low on fuel. So they have to figure out a way to enter the atmosphere at a shallow angle so the lighter air higher up will have a chance to slow the craft down before it hits the denser air closer to the surface. But, if they hit the atmosphere at too shallow an angle, just like a rock skipping on the water, they might skip off the atmosphere and go back out into space. If they enter at too steep an angle, the lighter air may not be able to slow them enough and they'll burn up in the denser atmosphere. If the craft makes it through the atmosphere safely, there's still the problem of hitting the surface. They're still falling pretty fast. So, as soon as they can do so, the deploy some really large parachutes. These slow the craft down so it doesn't splatter when it hits the water. The space shuttles have wings that create more resistance in the upper atmosphere and slow the crafts down. Once they've slowed down, they can be flown to a landing strip and land like any plane. Actually space shuttles aren't actually "flown." They are guided. They're like big gliders. They absolutely have to land correctly the first time. They don't get a second chance because they have no power to go around for a second try.
5. Very quickly!!!