A lot of attention has been paid to the ceramic tiles that keep the space shuttle from burning up on reentry. But two UMR researchers say that won't be a problem for long. “We’re going back to Apollo-style lunar missions,” says Dr. Greg Hilmas. “The push is to go back to the moon and then on to Mars by 2020. They won’t need a reusable reentry vehicle like the shuttle in the decade ahead. NASA is looking to use capsules with a shield that erodes some as it is heated. For that, they can use carbon-based material instead of the dense ceramics we’re developing at UMR.”

The ceramics Hilmas and research partner Dr. Bill Fahrenholtz are trying to develop can withstand temperatures up to 3,000 degrees Celsius, which is hot enough to incinerate just about everything on Earth. By contrast, the ceramic tiles used on the space shuttle can only withstand temperatures of about 1,350 degrees Celsius.

So why do we need materials to protect against temperatures more than twice as high as those generated during shuttle reentry? Think missiles that can go more than five times the speed of sound.