Why is it a rocket🚀 is used to go straight up into outer space and not just use an airplane ✈️ ? I’m sure there is a good reason but it seems that the gradual assent would be preferred over the straight up approach.
In: Engineering
wings and turbines depend on a certain atmospheric pressure to function, flight record is like 30km, obviously that being a purpose built aircraft, not a heavy lift.
there have been concepts to use an assist aircraft (or balloon) to get the shuttle up a bit before finishing with liquid fuel rocket propulsion.
Problem is… you might get up to what… 10 or 20km if your lucky, the space station is 340km up… so a long long way to go.
More importantly, you need to get it moving laterally too. The vast majority of launch thrust is to achieve this, not the vertical climb.
So your shaving only a fraction of the energy cost off the journey, but adding a TON of complexity (and limiting your payload based on what the plane can lift).
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