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Burning Hot Hot Gundam by Ben Here is this week's entry: While I will admit to being a self-proclaimed science geek and mecha enthusiast, this is a difficult question to answer. Perhaps the easiest way to explain would be to talk about what exist today and what is required for the future. In the present day, there are very few crafts capable of a controlled atmospheric re-entry. The most common of the ones that are out there are the space shuttle and the Soyuz pods used by Russia. These crafts both share a common design element for surviving re-entry, heat resistant tiling. The shuttle is completely covered from top to bottom with protective ceramic tiling, dubbed the Thermal Protection System. These heat resistant tiles help to absorb and disperse heat away from the more delicate systems of the shuttle's operation during re-entry. Now, these alone are not the entire thermal protection system. Keep in mind that one of the reasons we even need thermal protection is the human occupants of the craft. There are numerous systems in place to keep the occupants comfortable and safe. Now as we all know, these systems are far from foolproof. The recent destruction of the space shuttle Columbia over the United States is testament to the fact that accidents can happen. A small piece of insulation foam ripped a number of these tiles off the shuttle during its launch, and the absence of those tiles was enough to expose a critical section of the shuttle to the heat of re-entry, which eventually led to the shuttle's explosion. So going back to Mann's original question, can a mobile suit, or other similar size, very aerodynamic object survive re-entry? Honestly, with current heat shielding technologies and cabin control systems, no I don't think we could create anything as large and humanoid as a mobile suit that could survive the extreme heat of re-entry, but that isn't to say it won't happen. In Gundam Wing Endless Waltz, The Wing Zero Gundam used its massive wings as a heat shield, Insulating both the suit and the cockpit. This is a similar idea to using heat tiling. You have to realize that the truth is, a mobile suit, or any machine for that matter is very fragile. Extremely dense and tough meteors become dust during re-entry, so the chances of a machine held together by nuts and bolts is dramatically less likely. The amount of friction and stress being placed on the machine is enormous. One major alternative would be a powered re-entry. A powered re-entry would be using an engine to forcibly slow the descent of the craft, thus reducing the friction, heat and stresses on the object. The only downside to this type of maneuver is an incredible amount of energy and fuel is required, and you would need to be able to constantly adjust for the sudden re-emergence of gravity. Most of this is all speculation, as I am not an astrophysicist, nor an rocket scientist. The long and short of the wander is, yes, a controlled re-entry without additional equipment is possible, but no, it isn't likely.
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