Atmospheric Entry

The transition from space flight to aerodynamic flight is a dynamic and challenging physics regime that people are just starting to figure out how to navigate. You can read more about it here:
Atmospheric entry

Aerospace is a pretty cool industry. My friend Nicole and I work at the same company, only her work involves creating the devices that will keep air conditioned, dry, full of oxygen, and free of carbon dioxide aboard the CST-100 space vehicle. This is more exciting than my work, which mostly involves figuring out how to move large awkward pieces of airplanes from one test stand to another, and pulling on them until they break. For science. That’s okay, though, because I get to live in Seattle and she has to work in Houston.

Space travel is an inherently romantic endeavor, and nothing in spaceflight quite captures the imagination like the parts of a spaceship that keep her crew alive and cool during the return to Earth after a voyage beyond. Beyond our home planet, spacecraft have also made it down through the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Titan, and it's transformed these places into real worlds, not just abstractions in the minds of a few astronomers and dreamers. There's much work to be done in making flight through plasma-hot air routine, but it's nice to know that, as a civilization, we're on our way.