JimO,

You asked:

"please pass on contact info about me to any of the heat shield folks who could help me get more attention on this question"

Welcome to the cruel reality of American aerospace engineering. The outfit that made the heatshield was a division of General Electric which was long ago sold to Boeing. The original staff have been laid off, quit, retired or died (most of their technical knowledge went with them). Much of the research and development for the Galileo Probe's heatshield was done at NASA Ames with a little bit of work done at Stanford University. Again it's the same old story, most of the people are either dead or retired with most of the technical knowledge lost. The special arc jet at NASA Ames (the Giant Planet Facility) used for qualifying the Galileo Probe's thermal protection system was mothballed years ago. Ames would love to reactivate the Giant Planet Facility but no one will fund the effort. The main man behind the Galileo Probe was Alvin Seiff, refer to:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2004/seiff/seiff.html

Al Seiff died from a brain tumor (fortunately after witnessing the success of the Galileo Probe). After Seiff died, they were going to toss all his professional stuff into the trash but I intercepted it. Through that bit of dumpster diving, I probably have the world's best set of data books on the Viking Lander aeroshell, Pioneer Venus and Galileo Probes. I've frequently used those data books to baseline new project proposal investigations and software validation. When I'm near the end of my professional life, I'll make a point of donating this material to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley (assuming they'll take it). If Berkeley won't take it then I'll try Stanford University. I'll be damned if I'll allow this history to get tossed into the trash.

Gary