why are the noses of rocket, shuttles, planes, missile(…) half spheres instead of spikes?

Question

why are the noses of rocket, shuttles, planes, missile(…) half spheres instead of spikes?

In: 5557

Answer 1

In addition to aerodynamics, a blunt nose allows more storage space for the same mass of payload. Unless you can get your payloads to be all pointy, that’s a lot of wasted space and weight at the tip. So we do a tradeoff, not hemispherical, but not very pointy either.