Why You Can't Fly a Plane into Space

Why can't you fly a commercial plane into space? They already go pretty high in the sky to begin with, so what's stopping them from going just a little higher? A lot more than you think! Check out today's epic new video to find out why commercial airplanes just wouldn't cut it in space, let alone leaving Earth's atmosphere.

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[alexhigginbotham]

Short answer. Engines need air. There is no air in space. Your welcome. Little more info: A craft can go to space... as we have seen. But to go to space the craft will need directional thrusters (wings won't work in a vacuum). The craft will need to bring it's own solid/gas fuel mixture for propulsion (again no air in space).

[midgarw]

Yall managed to turn "because there's no air" into a 20 minute animated video..

[batboylives]

Too high, no air get to engine. Engine stop, plane stop, plane fall...KAABOOOOM. LOL

[scottfranco]

A few corrections here. First, there is no point at which the air above the earth just "stops". In order for an aircraft to keep flying higher and higher it would have to reach higher and higher speeds, resulting in it being able to collect the same amount of air into the engines and to still get lift from the thinner and thinner air. This both means the engine has to be able to ingest supersonic air as well as the airframe dealing with the heating from the air molecules hitting the aircraft at higher and higher speeds.

Second, the heating the space shuttle and other reentering vehicles deal with is primarily because they are trying to slow the aircraft down for reentry, and that takes loosing energy, which is done by atmospheric friction. Its not inherent to flight in the thin upper atmosphere. Further, the higher speed of hitting air molecules and generating heat is balanced by the fact that there are fewer air molecules. The negative factor is that there are fewer air molecules to carry the heat away.

In short, we know how to fly in the thin atmosphere of near space. What we don't know (yet) is how to build engines that will do that, and further, the worth of doing it is debatable. It would take longer to fly to space (if we could) by atmospheric lift than to just go straight to space because of drag. Thus the whole idea of "flying to space" would be to negate the need to carry oxygen, and its probably simpler and more energy efficient just to carry oxygen (in liquid form) and go straight to space.

This argument is not irrelevant. Elon musk has proposed use of rockets as terrestrial transport, and it may be as or even more fuel efficient than standard jet airlines. Why? Drag. Atmospheric jets have it. Spacecraft mostly don't (boost phase and terminal phase only).

[stevenpike]

Short answer - wings need air for lift. Planes will stall out before they can escape Earths gravity or reach orbital velocity.

[frankym]

Let me get this straight. They got the okay to go higher to test the limits of the plane. Im not arguing that the pilots are not at fault, but they were given the okay by someone. The airline should be held responsible as well.

[MsShaunaM]

Spaceplanes offer the ability to travel from New York to Tokyo in roughly an hour. The commercial potential is amazing.
Now, for reference, the first flights from NYC to Pittsburg in a Ford Tri-motor was similar in cost (with inflation) to flying Concord from NYC to Paris.

[kevinsanchun]

Now explan why you cant eat driveway salt.

[fh]

The X-15 rocket plane was an early hypersonic vehicle. I knew one of the X-15 pilots. He eventually got his astronaut wings, almost 35 years later. The highest the X-15 reached was about 67 miles.

[RigoLopez-dwts]

Right i love the narrative, you can always just Google an answer, but these guys take u on an intellectual journey

[xdragonk]

The way most rocket propelled ships stays in space is by reaching orbital speed that is MUCH higher speed than what a normal plane usually reach. At this speed is where the reentry temperature will be too high for normal plane. But since they won't be reaching that speed with their puny engines, it's not a problem. If a normal plane is dropped from the Karman line straight down, it won't "burn up" like if you're reentering at orbital speed. It will reach its terminal velocity and then gain control by gliding. But if a normal plane is dropped from the ISS that is orbiting the Earth at orbital speed, then it better have a good heat shield or it WILL burn up on reentry.

Also, weightlessness is a feature of a freefall. You're still technically falling being pulled by Earth's gravity but since the floor is falling with you, you won't feel your weight. That is until you reached the ground. If you reached orbital speed, then you won't be touching any ground for a very long time.

[NanobanaKinako]

As I heard the word "Axiom"

I had the feeling just maybe one day, we could build a real life Axiom Spaceship as seen in Wall-E. That would be dope.

[MonkeySimius]

The gravitational force isn't gone in space. Lift would be virtually gone as you rise higher but gravity would still be there virtually as strong as ever preventing the plane from rising nearly high enough to enter space.

[zhouyinpiao]

2:05 This section about heat during re-entry is just wrong. Space shuttles need heat shields because they enter the upper atmosphere at 20 times the speed of sound and they're using air friction to slow down. If an airplane were to go that fast at typical cruising altitude, the dynamic pressure would cause it to disintegrate instantly before it had the chance to heat up.

[Andrew_BIake]

Why don't space ships just open their windows to let the hot air out when re-entering Earth's atmosphere? Works in cars.

[STSWBSGFAN]

Basically Space-Ship One was a civilian version of the old X-15 program. Ideally you would want a reusable space program to consist of a space plane for personnel that could be launched directly from the ground, or air launched from some type of carrier aircraft, and a heavy lift booster/second stage that would be used to put massive pieces of hardware (like say parts for a Mars rocket) into Earth orbit for assembly.

[ThatGuyRomero]

Isn't it crazy there are only 2 ways to get to space .. 1. A rocket shuttle ., an 2. A Balloon 🎈 lol😂

[dr.veronica]

"Can't we just fly our planes into space?"

"The law requires that I answer no."

[chrminid]

_Ooga booga no air for engines/wings in space…_

[Skoopyghost]

I might be dumb, but I thought of lack of oxygen.