• Rocket vs. Space Shuttle

    From perkanator@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Mon Feb 29 17:51:52 2016
    I am sure some of you rocket scientist can explain this. Why do rockets take off so fast...so much that its hard to see them take off. Yet the space shuttle is considered a rocket yet moves so slow on take off. I am sure it as lots to do with mass vs.
    thrust.

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  • From Jeff Findley@21:1/5 to All on Tue Mar 1 06:14:40 2016
    In article <4fe65ba9-0ee7-419c-bfd3-71e8a31e83b0@googlegroups.com>, perkanator@gmail.com says...

    I am sure some of you rocket scientist can explain this. Why do rockets take off so fast...so much that its hard to see them take off. Yet the space shuttle is considered a rocket yet moves so slow on take off. I am sure it as lots to do with mass
    vs. thrust.

    Mass versus thrust which gives you the "G" loading on the payload
    (astronaut). The space shuttle limits the thrust to limit the G loads
    on the astronauts to about 3 G during liftoff, so as not to cause health problems.

    It also has to do with how long the engines burn. On a model rocket,
    the engine usually only burns on the order of seconds. This is enough
    to get up in the air hundreds or thousands of feet, but that is nowhere
    close to orbital altitude, let alone orbital velocity.

    Jeff
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