Why Space Shuttle doesn't take-off like the Aeroplane, to save the fuel?

Question

When the Space Shuttle taking-off the ground, it used its own rocket power solely to lift the massive weight away from the ground. It is taking lot of energy since it doesn't taking any advantages of air lifting like the aeroplane.

If the space shuttle and the Giant Rocket having their own wings and take off on extra long and wide runway, this can safe lot of energy to be used on the space. This is because the wings can take the avantagse of air-lifting like the aeroplane.

Does anybody know the reason of not using this wings and air-lift advantages?

Thanks

Answer 1

I think its because you can't get high enough doing it in a slant way, so that means it has to go up vertically. Sorry if I got this wrong! lol.

Answer 2

There are many reasons this won't work.

First, the Shuttle is not able to fly like a typical aircraft. It is a glider, and a bad one at that. Those wings allow it to glide to the runway, but even then it lands at a much steeper angle than a typical aircraft does.

Second, the Shuttle does not have a fuel tank to power it's main engines. That has to be carried externally. Even if it's wings could support normal flight, they wouldn't work with that big fuel tank strapped to it's belly. It's maneuvering engines would be ineffective within Earth's atmosphere. The bottom line is that the Shuttle is incapable of powered atmospheric flight.

Now what if it was, or rather, what if we made a craft that was? It would not be useful for getting into orbit. In order for airfoils to produce lift, they must move through a fluid which would be air in this case. To move through it, you need to provide thrust. Even in level flight, an aircraft must provide thrust to maintain it's airspeed. To climb, it must provide even more thrust or it will slow down and be less efficient. You would gain very little using the atmosphere.

In order to orbit the Earth, a craft has to accelerate to around 17,000 miles per hour. This would be impossible inside the atmosphere. Drag would prevent you from reaching this speed, and if it didn't, the heat build-up from such high velocity in the air would wreck the craft very quickly. To get to this speed, you have to get out of the atmosphere... once you do that, your wings do you no good, and in fact add extra weight.

Now all this is not to say that the whole idea is bad. There are valid points in it. However current technology doesn't make it feasible to implement this kind of system on the scale that it would be useful. So, we stick with the proven and relatively inexpensive method of using rockets.

Answer 3

aeroplanes go around inside the atmosphere of air surrounding our planet but space shuttles go outside the atmosphere therefore, there's no air outside our atmosphere. that's why they have to use a lot more energy than aeroplanes do... maybe in the future they'll find a way doing what u said, they just retards...

Answer 4

couple of reasons:

1. up until recently we did not have the materials necessary to make a light enough shuttle that could actually fly in the air namely carbon fiber.

2.  And this is the real reason.  If you had wings on the shuttle, when it reentered the atmosphere they would tear off because of the shear force and heat upon them, killing everyone inside.

Answer 5

Taking off like an aeroplane means that you are taking a smaller angle out of the atmosphere, therefore you are constricted to gravity longer and it takes more force to break through. The force you would need to both push the weight of the shuttle upwards as well as forwards AND break through the atmosphere would be immense and it would take much more fuel.

Plus, its not very safe hunking round a very unstable shuttle and huge canister of explosive material above a country for a long time, and this could turn bad in the testing area of implementing the idea.

Answer 6

wings use air to create lift.... as the atmosphere gets thinner this IS effected... that's why it's been so difficult to create planes to fly at extremely high altitudes....

it may be more fuel efficient to use a wing system to get off the ground compared to a rocket, but the entire trip is more effiecient (by far) with rockets, rather then wings.... therefore, rocket is the chosen medium to put people in space.

once you start going up so high you have to start compensating for the reduced lift caused by reduced atmosphere.... you compensate by flying faster, or adding larger wing-systems to create more lift...

so now not only do we have to use more fuel and create a bigger space ship (which creates more weight needing more fuel) but now we also have to take extra fuel to compensate for the weight of the scientific payloads, and then because fo that you need more fuel to carry the fuel...

you see a pattern here? every machine has it's 'limits' you can always build bigger or faster if you really try.... but effiecincy WILL have to be sacraficed to do so...

Answer 7

bcuz lifting off straight up *is* the efficient way. the shuttle glides like a brick and would make a lousy airplane.

pegasus launches are done from high altitude aircraft to eliminate most of the need for a first stage. aerodynamics plays very little part in them too.

Answer 8

Wings are of use only in air. Once you escape the atmosphere, wings are useless. But escaping the atmosphere does not mean you have escaped the earth's gravity, and escaping the earth's gravity requires rocket engines, which produce far greater thrust than jet engines.

The problem with rocket engines v jet engines is that once a rocket is ignited, a chemical reaction is started which cannot be stopped - there is no off switch, and if you get a problem like Challenger, there is no going back. From a safety point of view, jet engines would be preferable, but from a pure physics point of view, they simply could not produce the thrust required to reach the speed needed to get away from the earth's gravity.

Saving fuel is a nice ambition, but reaching escape velocity requires a specific amount of energy, and producing that energy requires a rocket and tons of fuel.

Answer 9

it cannot

those stubby little wings give the shuttle all the aerodynamics of a rock.

it cannot 'fly' anywhere, just glide very very fast to the ground.

falling with style.

Answer 10

AND I THOUGHT THE SHUTTLE DIDNT HAVE ANY ENGINES

Answer 11

at a certain height, there is no air, therefore no more wing lift. Besides, I don't believe you could deliver the large payloads flying them into space, you need brute force.

If you look at the launch of the space shuttle, you will notice the big cylinder to which the shuttle is strapped. The cylinder contains liquid hydrogen and oxygen to feed the engines of the shuttle during lift off. In addition the shuttle's lift is assisted by 2 solid fuel rockets, which fall away after the initial burn stage.

So, you get some idea how much fuel is required to escape the gravity of the earth. The shuttle needs an enormous velocity to escape, about 28000 mph. No airplane has flown that fast,except the shuttle. But its wings are tiny and therefore the lift capacity is limited.

If you have ever seen the shuttle land, they deploy a parachute to slow it down because of the required high landing speed.

Answer 12

Your additional detail is wrong - the Shuttle has wings, but not the solid rocket boosters, or the fuel tank.

The Shuttle is not designed for vertical flight, and as noted, the engines do not have any fuel tanks on board. They're fed by the huge orange external tank.

Besides, I think your basic assumption is wrong as well - even if the Shuttle could take off like an airplane, it would still need powered thrust once it got high enough into the atmosphere. Wings are no good in thin air. And even if that could be somehow overcome, how would it save energy to be used in space, as you suggest? It would still only carry as much energy as needed. The engine fuel would not be used for any other purpose, such as generating electricity to use in flight.

Oh, and the Messerschmidt was a fighter jet, designed to operate in an atmosphere. It didn't have any heavy-lift capability, and didn't work in space. Poor comparison.

I think your entire premise has more holes than a block of swiss cheese; otherwise it's a great idea. Too bad all those engineers who designed the Shuttle back in the 70's got it wrong, huh?