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Space/Science » in reply to Alternative Interplanetary Launch Method: Ramjet

re: Alternative Interplanetary Launch Method: Ramjet

Just an "Emperor's clothes" question:-

Suppose you are travelling at Mach 30, or 45, parallel to the Earth and at high altitude. How long have you got to "turn the corner" with aerodynamic surfaces alone, before you leave the atmosphere and join your cargo in a one-way trip to the beyond? Given that, how big do the aerodynamic surfaces need to be, in that thin air?

How large a lateral force do they need to deliver to your airframe and how stiff does it need to be to survive?

How much extra mass are you accelerating to Mach 30-45, and what is the fuel penalty, and structural mass to carry that fuel and tankage as additional take-off weight?

As the experts have already mentioned, we're doing a Challenger here and hoping for a large course correction without things peeling off like butter. In the case of Challenger, it was already heading downwards, and couldn't run out of atmosphere unless it skipped due to a too-shallow trajectory.

Also, anything you stick out distorts the hypersonic airflow and makes some things serious hot - so they peel off like melted butter. :-) By the quirks of hypersonic flow, it isn't neccesarily the protruding objects that melt first!

Or alternatively, you use the ramjet/scramjet to supply the cornering force, requiring an oblique intake/outflow or a curve in the supersonic ram tube (!!!). Plus, you have to carry more fuel since you now need it to slow down as well as speed up.

(or you use airbrakes, or reverse thrust ramjets, or drop an anchor...)

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