– could the space shuttle just fly into space like a plane, rather than being propelled vertically by rockets?
In: 48
I am not sure if by your question you are inquiring about the direction of propulsion (vertical vs horizontal) or means of propulsion (rocket, jet, or propeller)… or even if it’s the actual lift caused by the wing shape?
I’m not an engineer, just someone who grasps physics fairly well. A lot of responses focus on things like lift and air-resistance. These things are of no consequence in orbital mechanics. Orbits, and escaping orbits, is speed and direction (even direction can become very confusing when you lose points of reference).
Once above the atmosphere your speed determines your orbit. Going faster in a perpendicular direction to the radius, means orbiting higher. That’s it. Slow down, you drop, speed up=higher orbit.
I will assume your question is theoretical and refers to propelling horizontally versus vertically (simply because so much has been said about the rest already)? You could, in theory, get into space by propelling a plane horizontally. You will, however, have to propel it REALLY fast. If you have a plane that can push 7 miles per second, horizontally, you’ll be able to escape earth’s gravity. You would have to maintain that speed long enough to push through the atmosphere. The only method of propulsion we currently have capable of the would be solid fuel rockets.
A propeler would have to be made out of adamantium, or some other magical material to withstand the speed it would need to turn at in order to get to these speeds. Same for jets. I’d even add that we would need all sorts of magical materials and propellents, because fire in an engine does not burn fast enough. And, on top of that, these means of propulsion rely on atmosphere to create the push. So you could accelerate in atmosphere, but once out, whatever speed you’re at will remain constant. Wings would be somewhat useful, but not so much for lift, more for steering.
There is one technology far out on the horizon that might be able to, oblique wave detonation engine. Basically your propellent is exploding, in a controlled manner, instead of burning… but one continuous explosion. You could have a plane powered like this, that would need little wings to aim it, but once you get fast enough the wings would become less and less useful.
Other people have covered lift and drag, so, no, you can’t fly a plane into space because the plane needs air to lift it up. It would be like swimming 1 foot above a swimming pool. Try lying on a surfboard of some type, and “swim” in the air. Use the same motion but not in the water.
People have also covered how it is more fuel economical to take off vertically with rockets. However with a magical propellent, a rocket could be flown out into space like a plane.
Plane engines themselves have limits on how fast they can fly. The SR-71 Blackbird’s max speed was 2,200 mph iirc. Orbital velocity is in the 17,000 mph range. I don’t think plane engines would work.
If you used rocket engines like a plane, you would need to accelerate to extremely high speeds while you’re in the thicker parts of the atmosphere.
Rockets have to burn upwards for a while to get out of the atmosphere. However, once they’re in the thinner part, they do start tilting over until they are faced horizontally, because they have to achieve the massive orbital speed I mentioned above.
So they do fly horizontally, but they definitely have to do it outside of (the thicker parts of) the atmosphere.
No. It’s wings wouldn’t generate enough lift to get it to space. The wings are too small and the higher you get the less air so it would also not produce enough lift even if it had larger wings.
The reason it has wings is to enable it to land safely like an airplane, but at that point it’s doing a kind of “controlled fall” so it doesn’t need as much lift. Just enough to prevent it from “falling” into the ground too rapidly.
Absolutely, just not with current technology. The space shuttle is indeed a plane, albeit with smaller wings because they aren’t generally needed to provide lift as there is a giant rocket strapped to it. However they shuttle did land as a plane would, so they did indeed provide lift.
As far as the design being able to fly, sure. It would require some massive thrust and a ton of fuel as well as probably a long runway. The problem is with current tech we don’t have anything efficient enough to effectively do it. That’s why they use the rockets and go straight up.
The goal for the future is looking more towards flying as a plane would if they wanted to do much space flight. It would likely be a system that ran a fuel that provided its own oxygen as there is not enough in the upper atmosphere and there is none in space.
Really probably going to rely on some form of nuclear power.
Simple answer: The space shuttle is a glider not a plane. Gliders don’t have engines to generate lift to fly. Basically it used the rockets to get into space then just glided back to Earth.
Latest Answers