I just always assumed to achieve higher speeds in the universe you needed to be smaller and more aerodynamic. The Lockheed Blackbird is the fastest fighter jet we have and it goes only 2000mph. This fighter jet seems like it would be more aerodynamic than a rocket ship.
What is special about the rocket ships that allow them to achieve 25,000mph without being disintegrated when leaving the atmosphere and achieving escape velocity to go into space?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Rocket ships are designed to reach those speeds outside of our atmosphere. High speed jets typically stay well within our atmosphere and actually rely on it just to power their thrusters.
Think of our atmosphere a bit like another gigantic ocean. They are both fluids, after all, but the air is less dense. When you travel faster, this matters a lot!
Think of riding on a boat traveling across some water. You can stick your hands out and “catch” some air (or the classic hand surfing from the car window). But if you were to stick your hand in the water there would be a MUCH larger drag on your hand because you have to move WAY more mass out of the way.
In space, there is no atmosphere. No “ocean” to move through. There is nothing to move out of the way so you can just keep going faster and faster with nothing to slow you down.
The only main problem is that it’s pretty tough to get things to space in the first place. If you and your rocket want to go to space it might take X amount of fuel to get that much weight there. But that fuel weighs a lot too! So you might need 2x the fuel, but that fuel is heavy so you need MORE fuel. Then you end up with 5X the fuel (arbitrary number) without even counting extra cargo or equipment.
But again, once you are out of the atmosphere and you’ve invested enough to carry even more extra fuel or another propulsion device, there isn’t much stopping you from going faster and faster.
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