why are the noses of rocket, shuttles, planes, missile(…) half spheres instead of spikes?
In: 5557
A long, pointy nose is great for supersonic travel because it pierces through the air and helps dissipate the shockwaves experienced past the sound barrier (think *Concorde*). However, it’s worse for subsonic speeds because there’s more surface area than on a blunt nose, and therefore more drag. They’re only used on craft expected to spend most of their time travelling faster than the speed of sound.
To your examples: neither rockets nor the space shuttle travelled supersonically for enough time for it to make much of a difference; by the time they’re going fast enough to really get the benefit of a pointed nose, they’re pretty much out of the atmosphere so air resistance is nil anyway. On top of that, weight savings are everything in spacecraft, a few kilogrammes saved on takeoff might equal a few extra tonnes of payload you can get into orbit.
As for missiles, they’re small enough and travel for such a short amount of time that they wouldn’t see much benefit from a pointed nose. Again, not worth it – a missile is fired and hits its target in a matter of seconds.
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