Table of Contents
How long does it take for a spaceship to break the atmosphere?
It took just 8.5 minutes to propel the space shuttle from ground level to the orbital height of at least 185 kilometers (115 miles).
Can a spaceship bounce off the atmosphere?
Yes, a capsule cannot literally bounce off the atmosphere and its kinetic energy must be reduced by an encounter with the atmosphere, rather it would just pass through the atmosphere and back into space, having failed to lose enough velocity to stay in the atmosphere.
How fast do you have to travel to leave the Earth’s atmosphere?
If you want to completely escape Earth’s gravity and travel to another moon or planet, though, you need to be going even faster – at a speed of at least 7 miles per second or about 25,000 miles per hour.
How does a very massive space rocket be able to fly up the space?
In rocket flight, forces become balanced and unbalanced all the time. A rocket on the launch pad is balanced. The surface of the pad pushes the rocket up while gravity tries to pull it down. As the engines are ignited, the thrust from the rocket unbalances the forces, and the rocket travels upward.
What are the limitations of a space ship’s size?
The first fundamental limitation to a space vessel’s size is material strength. Beyond a certain point, whatever material your ship is made of will collapse under its own weight without exotic active materials. We can do some estimates using the Lane-Emden equationto predict the stresses the spacecraft will have to endure.
How fast can a spacecraft travel through the Earth’s atmosphere?
To skim the Earth’s atmosphere in orbit, your spacecraft has to travel at least as fast as 7.8 km / second, or about 17,500 mph. The Earth itself, with its atmosphere, is spinning eastward below you, at around 1,000 mph.
How can a spaceship go to the surface of the Earth?
Your spaceship just needs to thrust continually at 1 g away from Earth to maintain position as it slows down, and then it can lower itself down to the surface, as slowly or as quickly as your pilot wishes. But we don’t have such fuels yet.
How can we lower a spacecraft slowly through the atmosphere?
We could lower a spacecraft slowly through our atmosphere with a space elevator. This is basically a giant lift, with the top a long way above our atmosphere, extending beyond geostationary orbit, and usually reaching to the ground at the equator. It is held in place, and tensioned, by a counterweight above geostationary orbit.