Space Shuttle

[ugly_bob]

After the problems with the heat shields on the space shuttle recently, it occured to me. Why not just slow down before hand, thus reducing the friction from the atmposphere and reducing the needs for heat shields.
As far as I understand, shuttles don't have forward facing thrusters, but is the reason that the fuel needed would be of prohibitive weight, or simply a small NASA oversight?

[Loosehead]

I asked this recently:

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question129763.html

[dabees]

I read all the replies to your previous question. One thing people failed to mention was that you cannot land on a spinning object (i.e. the earth) unless you are travelling atleast at the same speed as the object. Spin a ball and throw something at it. What happens? The begger bounces off. Someone at NASA and The Russian Space agency obviously worked that one out.