[ricardobeat]

Re-entry will take something on the order of 10m or less. Even the space shuttle only took 30 minutes while flying like a plane. There will be no circumstances where the ship is going to be subjected to that amount of heat for 30-120 minutes.

> or the steel isn't reaching temperatures over 250 Celsius

That might be the case. The space shuttle had an aluminum structure that would fail at 175C, and now we have 40 years of technology advancements for the heat shield.

[strainer]

Also I notice Cr-Steel's elastic yield strength at 400C is about 87% of its strength at room temp and I don't think it does alter significantly over these timescales at that temperature. It will be interesting to see how high it can be routinely cycled without losing its temper, but it seems to certainly provide much more overhead for safety margins as well as routine operation.

[1] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/young-modulus-d_773.html