Science General Discussion

Viewing single post

Started by Legend, Sep 02, 2014, 07:17 PM

previous topic - next topic

the-pi-guy

Sep 17, 2019, 03:41 AM Last Edit: Sep 17, 2019, 03:48 AM by the-pi-guy
Quora tends to have weird answers. That wouldn't work at all.
Quora has a mix of answers from terrible to great.

Quote
It takes a lot of energy to launch stuff into space, the person is right that in situ resource utilization is important, but no one argues the resources should be used as is lol. Mine, refine, and manufacture all in space.

A hollowed out asteroid would make a horrible ship. Way too heavy to move and way too fragile. A purpose built ship with heat shields would handle aerobraking so so so much better. The massive asteroid would have no way to control itself in the air and would need to plunge into the thicker lower atmosphere to really slow down. It'd be nearly impossible to end up in a desired orbit. Every real world spaceship needs to fly like a "plane" to control where they go. This video from the sixties shows how it worked with Apollo:


Interestingly enough, SpaceX's BFR was actually designed to enter the Martian atmosphere upside down.
This would allow the rocket to stay in the upper atmosphere longer and bleed off more speed before entering the thick lower atmosphere. Without having this control, the rocket would have too much velocity and would "bounce" off.


But what if a space ship didn't have to go through an atmosphere?

Spoiler for Hidden:
<br>I don&#39;t think it&#39;d work for other reasons.&nbsp; <br>Wouldn&#39;t be very practical to move for one thing.<br>