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Abaltive shields come into play when a rocket lands. When the rocket comes back through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, the friction with the air makes it heat up. It gets so hot, it can burn away the outer material. To keep space travelers and payloads safe, shields are used.

The space shuttle used tiles made up of silica fibers as an ablative heat shields. Older space capsules like the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft used a plastic resin to carry heat away.