Bill Freeman wrote:

The shuttle tiles are in the 1.5 to 2.5" thick range, based on
the photos that I have seen.  Also, they are not a solid
material, but apparently either foamy or loosely aggregated
(perhaps sintered) fibers.  I believe that  (once again) air is
the actual insulator in this system.  The tile just holds the
air still, as per most other insulators.

Jeff's point is accurate, as the resistance to heat flow is linear
with thickness, i.e. a 1.5" thick layer will have 50 times the heat
flow resistance of a 0.030" layer of the same material.  So, even
if we wind up with some way to put shuttle tile material on the
inside of the pipe, it will provide only 2% of the resistance to
heat flow of an actual shuttle tile.

Bill

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