Does Rocketry Work beyond Earth's atmosphere?

[Nink]

Hi Hoi,
I am pretty sure we could come up with an array of magnets that will repel in vacuum / zero G without one of them rotating 180 degrees (maybe 2 apposing rail guns) but that could be tested in a zero g plane and a vacuum chamber. I just used magnets as an example of repulsion between two objects of equal mass.

Back on topic. I hear you on the TV Rockets, I assume there were initially some smart engineers at GE, Douglas Aircraft etc in the 1940s developing early multi-stage rockets like the RTV-G-4 Bumper rockets and they had their sites actually set on traveling beyond the Karman line (although JPL report they did). I don't believe the early engineers set out to deceive anyone it's just governments needing to demonstrate they have ICBM tech that probably made the first unrealistic claims in hopes the engineers would solve the problems necessary to acheive them.

That's my challenge, we don't really have a technology baseline. We don't know what is really possible and what is not and what the engineers and scientist were thinking as part of their original designs. I think the only thing we know for sure is the deception started back in the 40's after Germany first started the space propaganda war saying their long range missiles could hit any location on earth because their V2 rocket could reach space at 118 miles. Then came Sputnik the moon and we continue the hoax to Mars.

[Gopi]

I think most of rocketry can be summarized by one simple image:



A force of push is insufficient to move upwards, a pull is also necessary, which physics has not even considered so far, as nothing is pulling the rocket upward. Most of the discussion on momentum conservation is totally irrelevant, as the rocket has to pass through several hurdles before getting to a pure vacuum. As most of the folks on the forum have suggested, it is a real obstacle course:

1. Bypass atmosphere, the only thing that can generate push

2. Bypass the high temperature thermosphere, which would pretty much melt or vaporize all known materials

3. Bypass the extremely high electric and magnetic fields, which can rip through and fry all the electronics

4. Bypass the high uV, X-Ray and Gamma rays, which would actually cause radioactivity to spike

5. Retain a mass that is dropping exponentially... according to the equations

6. AND, to top it all off, navigate numerous meteors, debris, and whatever else is floating about

Putting it all together, the conclusion is that there is a physical screen. It is easier to lift oneself by the bootstraps than to get an object off the earth.

[Nink]

Great post and good summary of problems that are needed to be solved. If only there was an organization with a massive budget that was given the mission to solve them /sarc
I don't think they are all unsolvable and the initial challenge would be to get something into space and not necesarilay a life form.

1. Bypass atmosphere, the only thing that can generate push

thrust to 90-100klm => momentum => recoil

2. Bypass the high temperature thermosphere, which would pretty much melt or vaporize all known materials

Meteors make it in so some type of multi layered heat disapation system that burns off layers

3. Bypass the extremely high electric and magnetic fields, which can rip through and fry all the electronics

Faraday type shielding

4. Bypass the high uV, X-Ray and Gamma rays, which would actually cause radioactivity to spike

Do we care if no life forms but lead shielded space suits would work (going to need a lot more thrust and momentum)

5. Retain a mass that is dropping exponentially... according to the equations

Isn't losing mass the further we are from centre of earth a plus for us?

6. AND, to top it all off, navigate numerous meteors, debris, and whatever else is floating about

I am pretty sure we can solve that one with appropriate sensors, analytics and actuators.

Putting it all together, the conclusion is that there is a physical screen. It is easier to lift oneself by the bootstraps than to get an object off the earth.

[/quote]
I don't agree, I think the first step is to come clean and admit we were lied to and then go back to the drawing board and start at problem number 1

[HonestlyNow]

I don't agree, I think the first step is to come clean and admit we were lied to and then go back to the drawing board and start at problem number 1

And we is who, that would start at problem number 1?

Who else is pushing a space agenda besides those who want to steal money from 'taxpayers' to support their shenanigans, using Media Fakery to achieve their means. If a private individual wants to build rockets that go into space, they're "free" to spend their time and money doing so (philosophically speaking, of course). Our questions here about rockets working in space is directly related to the Media Fakery aspect of fooling the public out of their monies, and deeper than that, their sanities.

[Nink]

I don't agree, I think the first step is to come clean and admit we were lied to and then go back to the drawing board and start at problem number 1

And we is who, that would start at problem number 1?

Who else is pushing a space agenda besides those who want to steal money from 'taxpayers' to support their shenanigans, using Media Fakery to achieve their means. If a private individual wants to build rockets that go into space, they're "free" to spend their time and money doing so (philosophically speaking, of course).

Very good point. Perhaps it's the inner geek in me that would actually like to see us accomplish this. The private money idea doesn't work that well either. I am sure if SPACE X / Musk enterprises goes bust, the tax payers will need to bail him out just like we did the banks.

One way if anyone has some time / money to prove that rockets don't work in vacuum would be an experiment but not the mythbusters version. I propose two small solid fuel rockets say 1" long. one in a large vacuum chamber hung from the top perhaps 10 meters above the ground. The other 10 meters above the ground but not in a vacuum. Both suspended by a string with remote control electric detonators.

Detonate both rockets and cut the string. My logic is the one in the vacuum chamber will fall down until the thrust is close enough to the bottom of the vacuum chamber to provide a surface to push against. The other rocket will do what rockets do. I am sure NASA would say something like we were not using their special combustion chamber with unicorn horns and fairy dust but would be interesting none the less.

[hoi.polloi]

And I would propose, just as it's already been said for the bajillionth time, that the moment you are releasing gases into the vacuum chamber, you no longer have an empty vacuum and the experiment fails because of not being designed properly. Furthermore, tiny rockets do not compare to the physics of the behemoths we are told soar beyond the mesosphere. And the clincher is that even NASA hasn't claimed to have built a physical simulation of infinite vacuum on Earth, so no fairy tales of accomplishing such are necessary to mock.

[ProperGander]

Funny how science fiction becomes fact.

How Jules Verne Invented Astronautics

"Verne also correctly understood the operation of rockets in the vacuum of space and was the first to seriously suggest their use there (although Elbert Perce in his Gulliver Joi of 1851 has precedence). Verne was aware of many of the special needs of space travelers and allowed for them; and he described the effects of weightlessness (though he was wrong in explaining its cause)."

http://io9.com/how-jules-verne-invented ... 1493029901

[Larkness]

I have personally come to the conclusion that space travel is impossible (no rockets can be propelled in the absence of air, let alone switch off their engines and keep orbiting indefinitely and "for free" around our planet at hypersonic speeds!)

How did you come to the conclusion that rocket propulsion doesn't work in a vacuum? You perform any experiments? Have any mathematical calculations to back up your beliefs?

What is wrong with Newton's 3rd law describing a reaction to thrust? This can happen in a vacuum as the propellant gases are acting upon the nozzle. http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/n ... -Third-Law

I've yet to see anyone who knows about space flight claim that orbiting is "free". If you want to just hurl a chunk of debris into orbit then ignore it, then I guess you can call the coasting it does while in orbit free. But if you want anything useful from the object placed in orbit then it needs to have some sort of station keeping or attitude control unless it is a passive reflector like Echo 1. But even that one only lasted 8 years before the orbit decayed and it burned up in the atmosphere; it was then no longer useful or "free".

- and that once this insurmountable threshold of mankind's technology was discovered back in the days, the Nutwork (aka "the powers that be") decided to fool this entire world's population with their spaced-out fairy tales.

How was this discovered and who did so?

[simonshack]

How did you come to the conclusion that rocket propulsion doesn't work in a vacuum? You perform any experiments? Have any mathematical calculations to back up your beliefs?

Larkness, I have moved your above question to the most appropriate discussion thread.

You may find some answers to your question among the 38 pages of this thread - if you just set aside some time reading them.

[Larkness]

I asked why YOU were making the claims. So far I'm not impressed with the "facts" you are bring to the forum.

Thanks for bringing some well-documented common sense to debunk NASA's outlandish claims of having rockets moving in a vacuum.

Also, anyone with a modicum of aeronautical knowledge will know what a 'stall' means, that is when an airplane loses lift and, one could say, 'encounters vacuum'. The plane will plunge catastrophically to the ground - if aerodynamic support isn't quickly re-established.

Actually a stall happens when flow separation occurs at angles great than the critical angle of attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stall_(fluid_mechanics) It appears that you don't understand the material in the link supplied previously. I suggest you study Newton's third law, this will help you.

Neither has NASA, dear Lux... for almost half a century now!

NASA explains it here; https://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov ... ktth1.html

* Well, the claim that "air density has NO influence on rocket propulsion" has to be the silliest of all NASA lies.

Can you show me where any NASA scientist made this claim? People who understand rocketry know that rocket nozzles are shaped according to the density of the atmosphere (or lack thereof) they operate in.

As I've said, I agree that NASA probably can't use rockets in space in any real practical way but I don't think this thread covers the reason for that. ....
Thoughts and comments most welcome.

In this post you go on and on about how rockets are impractical due to changes in atmosphere density. You seem to forget that larger rockets use staging. In part to rid themselves of excess weight but also to take advantage of the upper stage's engine which has a nozzle better suited for operation in the thinner air.

[hoi.polloi]

I asked why YOU were making the claims. So far I'm not impressed with the "facts" you are bring to the forum.

Thanks for bringing some well-documented common sense to debunk NASA's outlandish claims of having rockets moving in a vacuum.

Also, anyone with a modicum of aeronautical knowledge will know what a 'stall' means, that is when an airplane loses lift and, one could say, 'encounters vacuum'. The plane will plunge catastrophically to the ground - if aerodynamic support isn't quickly re-established.

Actually a stall happens when flow separation occurs at angles great than the critical angle of attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stall_(fluid_mechanics) It appears that you don't understand the material in the link supplied previously. I suggest you study Newton's third law, this will help you.

Neither has NASA, dear Lux... for almost half a century now!

NASA explains it here; https://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov ... ktth1.html

* Well, the claim that "air density has NO influence on rocket propulsion" has to be the silliest of all NASA lies.

Can you show me where any NASA scientist made this claim? People who understand rocketry know that rocket nozzles are shaped according to the density of the atmosphere (or lack thereof) they operate in.

As I've said, I agree that NASA probably can't use rockets in space in any real practical way but I don't think this thread covers the reason for that. ....
Thoughts and comments most welcome.

In this post you go on and on about how rockets are impractical due to changes in atmosphere density. You seem to forget that larger rockets use staging. In part to rid themselves of excess weight but also to take advantage of the upper stage's engine which has a nozzle better suited for operation in the thinner air.

If you continue to post the way you have in the rocketry thread, using rhetorical language in lieu of a scientific argument, it doesn't demonstrate you actually understand what you're saying. Please calm down and write as if speaking with reasonable people, which we are.

So far, you haven't offered much but the claims of NASA as response to quite reasonable and specific concerns with contradictions and/or the lack of completeness in the official story. You really should understand the full body of this thread and demonstrate that you can (and are allowed to) comprehend reasonable disagreements with your point of view.

But first, if you don't mind, please address the concerns about your reason for coming to the forum here: http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f= ... start=2130

[Larkness]

If you continue to post the way you have in the rocketry thread, using rhetorical language in lieu of a scientific argument, it doesn't demonstrate you actually understand what you're saying.

Actually each sentence in my post does have meaning and is not meant to be rhetoric.

Please calm down and write as if speaking with reasonable people, which we are.

I am calm, I think you are misinterpreting the tone of my post.

So far, you haven't offered much but the claims of NASA....

When simonshack goes on and on about NASA this and NASA that, it is entirely appropriate to post what NASA has to say about a subject, especially when what NASA says is in direct conflict with what simonshack claims they say.

....as response to quite reasonable and specific concerns with contradictions and/or the lack of completeness in the official story.

I've yet to see any contradictions of the official story other than those spun up by people who wish to interpret what NASA claims in their own manner.

You really should understand the full body of this thread and demonstrate that you can (and are allowed to) comprehend reasonable disagreements with your point of view.

I'm reading it now and posting what I feel are relevant comments.

But first, if you don't mind, please address the concerns about your reason for coming to the forum here: http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f= ... start=2130

Okay, on the way there now.

[Larkness]

*To be sure, only NASA has large enough vacuum chambers to perform any sort of experimental verification of what I'm about to contend.

The ESA has a 10 by 15 meter vacuum chamber designed to test spacecraft. Is this large enough?
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space ... ulator_LSS I think so.

Back in 1654, Otto Von Guericke, the inventor of the air pump (to simulate vacuum on Earth) performed a spectacular experiment. He had 16 horses trying to pull apart (in vain) two empty hemispheres held together only by the force of vacuum:...."By this experiment he demonstrated that it is impossible to pull the two halves apart against the air pressure, even by using 2 X 8 horses

Actually he merely showed that his horses couldn't generate the 20000 N force required to pull apart the 50 centimeter sphere. Given a one inch sphere at a vacuum, I could easily supply the 11 pounds of force required to separate them, a 2 inch sphere would be more of a challenge at over 40 pounds.

Well, consider this: no honest scientists will deny that, when opening a valve between two containers (one containing air at high pressure - and the other only vacuum) the pressures in the two containers will equalize in a fraction of a second, the vacuum container 'sucking' the air to itself with tremendous, almost explosive force. (see the above density figures to understand why.)

That depends entirely upon the characteristics of the valve/piping between the container and the outside. Small valve and piping or a throttled valve means the pressure can be equalized very slowly and in a controlled manner. I challenge you to name any honest scientist who would claim otherwise.

Imagine now the high pressure emitted by any rocket from its (always open) nozzle. As it enters the vacuum of outer space, the very same - almost explosively rapid - pressure equalization is bound to occur.

Chemical rockets depend upon very high velocities to achieve any useful thrust as do the much more efficient ion engines.

The rocket will be emptied of all of its pressurized fuel in a flash - by the overwhelmingly superior power of the vacuum itself.

I disagree. A liquid fuel rocket engine typically has a system of pipes and valves which control the flow of fuel from the tank. The fuel is pumped or fed from a pressurized tank to the combustion chamber. Whether it burns or not, the resulting mixture of gases flows out of the nozzle creating thrust.

No matter how powerful the rocket (propelled by any fuel known to man / and designed to perform in our 0,001 atmosphere) - the very laws of physics will not allow it to ascend any further into the void of space. It will haplessly tumble back to Earth.

I disagree. The thrust is proportional to the mass and velocity of the propellant gases. Newton's 2nd law, F=ma. Yes, to those who are not familiar with physics, this is an appeal to authority, but to those who have studied, it is not.

Adding to the above-mentioned 'little problem', is the fact that rockets do indeed push against our relatively dense atmosphere (see the above 0,001 figure).

I disagree. The gases will push the air out of the way, the engine does not depend upon the air to push against to propel the craft other than how efficiency is affected by air pressure.

Naturally, NASA will tell you otherwise - and this is one of their most infamous lies. They will cite Newton and repeat ad nauseam that their rockets' forward motion is due solely to recoil reaction forces

Yes they do (they are not lying) and they are correct to do so in my opinion.

- and that aerodynamics / air pressure have nothing do with propelling them - at all !

Can you supply a source at NASA that makes this claim? I tend to doubt they say this as the engines contractors make for them have various shaped engine bells depending on what pressure atmosphere (if any) they operate in.

This is of course absurd and is akin to say that water has nothing to do with a rowing boat's forward motion. You need not be a genius to figure that it is the oars pushing the water backwards that make a rowing boat move forwards

I do not think it is the same thing at all. The differential pressure of the water between the front and back of the oar blade is what propels the boat just as it is the accelerated mass (as a result of differential pressure) of the combustion gases in the rocket engine that creates thrust and motion of the rocket.

(NASA would basically rebut that it moves exclusively due to the rowing man's rocking motion - and that the oars' water displacement has nothing to do with propelling the boat !).

Again I hope you can provide a NASA source for this claim.

Of course, if you raise the oars out of the water (density 1) and just flap the oars in the air (density 0,001), you won't go very far.

I can make a boat move forward with oars in the air, but like you claim, very slowly. The differential pressure across the oar will of course be very low.

Likewise, a rocket that works fine in our atmosphere (density 0,001) will obviously not go very far once the atmospheric density drops to 0,000000000000000000000001 !

Again I disagree. The mass of the propellant gases remains the same given the same fuel flow. The efficiency of the engine will change along with air pressure as NASA claims, but Newton's 2nd law says that there will still be some thrust.

I'm afraid I'll have to cite Newton's Third Law once again. Sorry, folks - I know... you've heard this one before!
"When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that of the first body."

Perhaps Newton's third law should have specified (and highlighted the importance of) the relative masses of the two bodies involved. The bodies need to be of equal mass in order for the "equal in magnitude" part of this law to be true.

I think you don't understand what force is. It is a product of mass and acceleration. The masses don't have to be equal. Force is conserved even when different masses are involved because the light mass will have greater acceleration.

To attain the so-called escape velocity of 8km/s with "recoil power" only, this is what NASA's rockets would have to do: they'd have to shoot out from behind their rockets, all at once (like a bullet from a gun) a mass equal to the mass of the vessel itself - at a velocity of 8km/s. This means that, if this were to be the case (that rockets move due to "recoil action/reaction")- more than half of any rocket's fuel mass would have to be ejected at that speed - as illustrated in this gif diagram:

Please read up on total impulse. It is the product of thrust and time. A chemical rocket used to boost payloads into orbit consists mostly of fuel. The rate of fuel burn is selected to overcome gravity, gain orbital speed and to limit the g forces on the rocket.

[simonshack]

Larkness,

I have actually enjoyed reading my own old / past musings - which you are now quoting (and critiquing) one by one. I can hardly find any fault with them.

Your critiques are simply parroting the mumbo-jumbo that NASA has fed us for over half a century. I'll let everyone judge for themselves what is going on here.

[Larkness]

Larkness,

I have actually enjoyed reading my own past musings - which you are now quoting (and critiquing) one by one. I can hardly find any fault with them.

Your critiques are simply parroting the mumbo-jumbo that NASA has fed us for over half a century. I'll let everyone judge for themselves what is going on here.

I find much fault with them of course. Are you going to provide links to prove that NASA actually claims what you say they do? You talk a lot about NASA but I mostly see what you write about them, not what they actually claim.

This latest claim shows how sloppy you can be;

Of course, since the Space Shuttle Program is credited for having rocketed a whole bunch of junk into orbit - ....the entire "I$$" and whatnot, it would seem logical to determine whether the Shuttle could technically reach the vacuum of space in the first place.

The Space Shuttle only put up certain portions of the ISS. For example the first portion of the ISS was launched on a Proton rocket.