why are we still designing rockets with the same shape (cylinder/nose cone)? Do we still not have the technology to send up boxier/flatter objects with thrusters on like the 4 corners, making for more stable landing and re take off?
In: Physics
necessity is the mother of all invention. When there is enough need to go into space, i’m sure human innovation will make more sophisticated designs to endure the demands and strains of space-travel.
Nose cone: Aerodynamics, as many others have touched on. You’ll see that the actual satellites are almost never cone-shaped (unless they’re designed to come back down), and also the cone is usually ditched as soon as we’re out of the atmosphere.
Cylinder: Mostly manufacturing. Rolling metal into a circle is cheap and easy, only needs a single weld (=weak point), and a circle shape can also hold the most pressure for the least material. OFC a sphere would even be better, but you can’t mount something on top of a sphere that easily.
“more stable”: Another shape would give you no real advantage, if not even a disadvantage. On the launch pad, the rocket is held in place by clamps, so you don’t really care about how intrinsically stable it is. Unless there’s a hurricane it won’t tip over. In flight, aerodynamics is everything, and here again, corners = bad. And on landing, you have legs, which again make the shape of the rocket irrelevant.
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