Question by Joseph: Is it possible to leave orbit without going extremely fast?
I was curious if it was possible to engineer a plane/shuttle hybrid that could take off from a runway and then switch to non-chemical fuels when it reached a certain altitude. (VASIMR or others)? Basically, is it possible to leave earth’s atmosphere and leave it’s orbit without going extremely fast? Or would you have to achieve significant velocity in Earth’s upper atmosphere with non-chemical rockets?
Best answer:
Answer by Anthony
no. you would have to reach a significant speed to leave our gravitational pull, and be going quick enough not to burn in our atmosphere.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
6 Responses
It’s theoretically possible to send an object out slowly but very impractical our top layers of atmosphere are damaging to wutever ur launching so you want to get it out fast, also it takes more energy to maintain a low speed for a long time then to jus shoot it because it’s constantly fighting gravity, and the momentum is pretty helpful, however once something is out of the atmosphere it’s much easier to leave orbit with little effort or energy not sure I gave all the detail you wanted but I hope it helps
Well a space elevator could go just as fast as a regular building elevator and use a simple electric motor, it would take quite a long time to get anywhere however. But once you got out to geosynchronous orbit, could could just drift off at whatever acceleration you choose.
Yes, it is possible. The requirement is that a vehicle must have constant propulsion. The basic idea is the constant kinetic energy will result in a higher and higher orbit where the actual escape velocity becomes less and less.
From an engineering and practicality point of view, I’m not sure if that is feasible. Besides, if you want to escape orbit and go somewhere in the solar system, you probably want a good head of steam to get to wherever you are going.
Yes, it’s possibly to slowly crawl out of Earth’s gravitational well. However, this is much less efficient than accelerating immediately to escape velocity (about 11 km/s), then coasting the rest of the way.
A low-thrust engine like VASIMR could not escape from the ground. You’d have to put the object in orbit (about 7.7 km/s) using a traditional rocket, then gradually boost the apogee with the ion engine until you escaped.
All very simple to understand. All devices projected for security launches for peoples.Only after trouble-free flying will been given other types of engines.The sooner the better but it is will happen once.Now available star ship from cycle is made.
Nope. You’d have to go a certain speed only achieveable today with chemical rockets to leave the Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational pull.