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Anthony X
Anthony X
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Consider:

As rockets consume their fuel, they get lighter, so the thrust they produce is applied to a progressively reducing mass. The result is increasing acceleration and therefore g-force on the vehicle.

Two examples: Apollo Saturn and the Space Shuttle both limitlimited their acceleration by shutting down or throttling back engines so as not to exceed about 3g. This is both for the benefit of the crew and because the structures can'tcouldn't take any more than that. The reason is weight.

Everything on a rocket has to be made as light as possible to minimize the fuel required to get it into space. That limits how strong things can be. Rocket structures are made only as strong as they need to be, hence they are as light as they can possibly be.

Now if you want to catapult the thing off a launch pad, you need to make things stronger to take all those extra g-forces (only needed for the duration of the catapult) and therefore everything gets heavier and therefore you need to carry more fuel to get the job done once you're past the end of the catapult stroke.

Consider:

As rockets consume their fuel, they get lighter, so the thrust they produce is applied to a progressively reducing mass. The result is increasing acceleration and therefore g-force on the vehicle.

Two examples: Apollo Saturn and the Space Shuttle both limit their acceleration by shutting down or throttling back engines so as not to exceed about 3g. This is both for the benefit of the crew and because the structures can't take any more than that. The reason is weight.

Everything on a rocket has to be made as light as possible to minimize the fuel required to get it into space. That limits how strong things can be. Rocket structures are made only as strong as they need to be, hence they are as light as they can possibly be.

Now if you want to catapult the thing off a launch pad, you need to make things stronger to take all those extra g-forces (only needed for the duration of the catapult) and therefore everything gets heavier and therefore you need to carry more fuel to get the job done once you're past the end of the catapult stroke.

Consider:

As rockets consume their fuel, they get lighter, so the thrust they produce is applied to a progressively reducing mass. The result is increasing acceleration and therefore g-force on the vehicle.

Two examples: Apollo Saturn and the Space Shuttle both limited their acceleration by shutting down or throttling back engines so as not to exceed about 3g. This is both for the benefit of the crew and because the structures couldn't take any more than that. The reason is weight.

Everything on a rocket has to be made as light as possible to minimize the fuel required to get it into space. That limits how strong things can be. Rocket structures are made only as strong as they need to be, hence they are as light as they can possibly be.

Now if you want to catapult the thing off a launch pad, you need to make things stronger to take all those extra g-forces (only needed for the duration of the catapult) and therefore everything gets heavier and therefore you need to carry more fuel to get the job done once you're past the end of the catapult stroke.

Source Link
Anthony X
Anthony X
  • 17.6k
  • 1
  • 63
  • 101

Consider:

As rockets consume their fuel, they get lighter, so the thrust they produce is applied to a progressively reducing mass. The result is increasing acceleration and therefore g-force on the vehicle.

Two examples: Apollo Saturn and the Space Shuttle both limit their acceleration by shutting down or throttling back engines so as not to exceed about 3g. This is both for the benefit of the crew and because the structures can't take any more than that. The reason is weight.

Everything on a rocket has to be made as light as possible to minimize the fuel required to get it into space. That limits how strong things can be. Rocket structures are made only as strong as they need to be, hence they are as light as they can possibly be.

Now if you want to catapult the thing off a launch pad, you need to make things stronger to take all those extra g-forces (only needed for the duration of the catapult) and therefore everything gets heavier and therefore you need to carry more fuel to get the job done once you're past the end of the catapult stroke.