3 ms·
Aircraft also can glide if they lose power, and they don’t carry oxidizer with their fuel. I prefer the failure modes of an aircraft to those of a rocket. It w
by NegativeLatency 8y ago
Aircraft also can glide if they lose power, and they don’t carry oxidizer with their fuel. I prefer the failure modes of an aircraft to those of a rocket.
It would be nice to get to orbit without sitting on top of a marginally controlled bomb.
- theothermkn 8y ago> I prefer the failure modes of an aircraft to those of a rocket. Then you would hate a launch loop. A flexible steel rod traveling at above orbital velocity and magnetically suspended inches away from an enclosing sheath is basically 200 miles of kiloton explosions waiting to happen, followed by an unimaginably large rain of debris.
- GW150914 8y agoAs it points out in the article, for safety and astrodynamic reasons a loop would be situaties over an ocean, and most failure modes would be limited in scope.