3 ms·
The amount of energy required to lift an object to 50,000 feet altitude under mach 1 is insignificant compared to the amount of energy required to achieve orbit
by mnw21cam 11y ago
The amount of energy required to lift an object to 50,000 feet altitude under mach 1 is insignificant compared to the amount of energy required to achieve orbit. You're basically talking about making a rocket, but saving a very small amount of fuel by starting a little higher in the atmosphere. Then you double the delta-v required by having a dead stop in orbit. That much delta-v would require a very large multi-stage rocket indeed, which defeats the object of your exercise.
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoYes. Apologies. I will make an addition to my comment. I was only addressing sub-orbital flight, not orbital flight. The initial article was about the old NY-to-Tokyo in 2 hours thing we've been reading about for ages. You cannot make orbit, but you should be able to go a long ways ballistically. Add: A great way to learn about the energies involved is to create your own simulator in your programming language of choice. The ballstic/orbital math isn't that hard, and you don't run into a huge number of problems just modeling how to get to orbit. I did this many years ago, and concluded that for non-biological items, mass drivers win hands-down. Unless the magic of field propulsion finally happens, taking your own fuel along with you sucks.