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
If you replaced all the jet fuel with rocket and fuel and oxidizer… it still wouldn’t work. To get into space, you have to be going *really* fast, sideways, about 7.5 km/s fast. To get that fast you need a ton of fuel, rockets carry roughly 10kg worth of fuel just to get 1kg worth of payload into space. In order to make getting into space more efficient, rockets drop their expended fuel tanks and engines. Planes can’t really do this and the extra weight of all the control flaps and whatnot means you’d need large wings to be able to lift this weight. Bigger wings means greater drag which also means you’ll need more fuel, but wait! That’s more weight which means bigger wings, more fuel…. you get the picture. Spaceplanes are really, really hard, even harder than rockets.
1. They work by moving air through their engines. The less air, the less effective their engines are.
2. They work by moving air over their wings. The less air, the less lift.
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The combination of the two factors above explains why each model of aircraft has a different ‘ceiling’.
Airplanes can get into space – what we define as being over 100 km in altitude. It first happened in 1963 by the X-15 craft.
However, getting into **orbit** is completely different. That requires speeds above 17,000 mph, which is far faster than any conventional aircraft can achieve. The X-15 maxed out under 5,000 mph.
Because airplanes require air, and the higher the altitude is the less air there is. That is why to actually go to space you need a rocket, rockets do not need air for propulsion.
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