– could the space shuttle just fly into space like a plane, rather than being propelled vertically by rockets?
In: 48
You know the Kármán line that (kinda) separates space from not space? that line is defined by the point where wings no longer generate lift, so you can only fly up to ~100km but then you’ll get stuck.
People on the KSP realism mod like to use planes for re-usable launches since the spaceX method (booster catching) is poorly supported. this is because a lot of your losses with a rocket are due to aerodynamics, so you can cut out a bunch of your losses by doing most of your sideways acceleration at ~80km with a ramjet, but then you still need a two stage rocket to get the rest of the way to orbit from 80km.
the reason why this isn’t popular IRL is because the engineering of such a craft would be ridiculously complicated, and you’d need to haul a ramjet that you aren’t using to and from orbit from 80km, so it’s just easier to brute force it, especially if you can re-use your first and second stage boosters already.
What WAS used IRL was an airlaunch – essentially strap the rocket to an airplane (usually an out of service bomber) and launch it from that airplane’s service ceiling instead of the ground. This was very popular for the Space planes that were being launched before we had orbital rocket capabilities (X-15 is the most famous example), but those planes were more rockets with some wings and aerodynamics attached, instead of planes with rockets on them.
Latest Answers