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The SKYLON projectĪs luck would have it, there might soon be just such a vehicle. We need a space-plane hybrid of sorts – a reusable vehicle designed for many journeys. Rockets just aren’t going to take humanity to the stars, in the same way no one crosses the Atlantic in a catapult. It’s hard enough to get them to work just once, let alone tens or maybe hundreds of times. Rockets tread a fine line between flying and exploding. Essentially, you design the parts you’d normally just drop to have enough fuel left in them that they can land back on the launch pad.īut even if you manage to land the booster stage, it’s going to need a very expensive inspection before it can be flown again. Recently, private space technology company SpaceX started working on reusable landing boosters in order to reduce the cost of each flight. Going to orbit (and beyond) requires that you fly very high and very fast in a place with no air – something only rockets can do. This is, of course, what makes a rocket special. But wings (and planes) need air to fly and there’s no air in space. Wings are very efficient at turning energy into lift you move the wing forward and it pushes air down, lifting the wing up. Planes, like anything else that flies, have wings. The problem is you can’t fly a plane to space. A plane gets used thousands of times, so the cost can be split over multiple flights.Ĭlearly, moving things to space would be much cheaper in a plane.
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But the price of moving a ton is clearly very different depending on which mode you choose. Along with their fuel, rockets must also carry all the oxygen they need to burn it.īoth carry similar amounts of cargo, both cost a relatively similar amount to build. You point it in the direction you want to go and then rapidly release a load of energy under it (explode your fuel with oxygen) until the force from the explosion pushes the rocket up. Except the catapult cost hundreds of millions of dollars and explodes after you use it once.Įssentially a rocket is a brute force approach. Going to orbit in a rocket is the equivalent of deciding you want to travel from the US to the UK, climbing into a catapult, and firing yourself across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, this gateway happens to be about 100 miles off the floor and moving at about 20,000 mph.
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Orbit is the gateway to the solar system, the galaxy, the universe. But speed up just a little and you can leave earth all together. Slowing down a little returns you to the surly bonds of gravity. You stay at the same height going round the Earth because you’re moving forward so fast that the Earth drops away below you at the same speed you fall into it. Being in orbit means you are balanced – between gravity pulling you down and your own momentum flinging you into outer space.