Why Building A Space Plane Is Nearly Impossible (Physics Explanation)

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Every Sci-Fi movie shows our heroes traveling in futuristic planes straight into space. Not only is this a dream of space enthusiasts around the world but also rocket scientists who can actually make it possible. However, building a space plane is way harder than building a traditional rocket due to a variety of reasons. First of all, planes rely on the atmosphere to generate lift and their jet engines rely on oxygen to perform combustion. Given that space doesn't have either of these, scientists have to modify planes quite heavily to have them successfully operate in a vacuum. Aside from the atmosphere problem, space planes undergo extreme heat during various portions of their flight. Thermal issues proved to be one of the biggest shortfalls of the Space Shuttle, and this is still the case today. This video explains the various physical limitations of flying a plane into space and why building a space plane is nearly impossible.

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Timestamps:
0:00 - Space Planes
0:55 - Lack Of Lift
3:46 - Rocket Engines vs Jet Engines
5:09 - The Problem With Rocket Planes
8:42 - North American X-30 & X-43
9:36 - The Truth About Space Planes

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[vip-cwst]

Space plane will prove itself in the near future...

[RAV]

if isaac newton didn't discovered gravity. we could've achieved space by jumping.

[maxstark]

I never thought about it before i just found a solution they should attache one rocket to the plane then i realized it is already done.

[thomaszhang]

The Yunlong engine pre-cooler was just successfully tested 1 month ago, where it cooled high speed air flow from 1000 degrees Celsius to 0 in a few milliseconds. It’s a huge breakthrough and arguably the most challenging part of a spaceplane.

Of course, the engine will not be ready until late 2020s and the first plane won’t fly until 2035, but it’s not really impossible.

It is very much possible and projected to cut down cost by 90% compared to traditional rockets.

[starshipsn-]

I hope the experimental oblique wave detonation engine gets somewhere. I think that could be the key to spaceplanes if it works as expected.

[mrman]

oh noes... Newton would like a word with you about conservation of momentum and the affect of deflecting a mass of air

[kennethkho]

Lockheed X-33 demonstrated that it's a full ssto and the most advanced spacecraft at the time, using aerospike engine and 90% cheaper than the space shuttle, killed in the final moment by Ivan Bekey. Skylon from the UK successfully tested the cooling system for air-breathing engine at mach 5.5 and attempting to test the ssto spaceplane in 2025 (18 tons to LEO). Similarly lockheed SR-72 is also aiming for mach 6 using air-breathing engine but with a different purpose, as a successor of SR-71. USAF now need a powerful reconnaissance airplane again due to the threat of anti-satelite weapons.

[daleyoung]

I feel like it would have been good opportunity to end with Skylon and reactions engines SABRE engine. It is trying to solve exactly that problem by being both and air breathing jet engine and a rocket engine at the same time.

It has been in development for a while now showing some really promising results and has some serious backing behind it now

[jawlockgaming]

There is actually a space plane in development called skylon.

[hariharpuri]

Hope it don’t end up like the commercial super sonic plane ✈️ accident . The damage by the planes on the houses .

[spaceheadau]

Hey, I know I haven't commented in a while, but I want to thank you for continually and actively uploading high quality videos. When I subbed to your channel I was worried that like many others you'd just stop, but you've been keeping at it, so thank you.

[loodwich]

Probably we need to find a new path for physics to solve the problem...

[diogoduarte]

The most attractive thing about spaceplanes isn't whether they launch horizontally, but the fact of leveraging the extremely high ISP of an air breathing engine for gaining orbital speed, reserving rocket fuel for the orbital maneuvers.

[stevemickler]

The Srarraker solved these problems. It was a very large spaceplane proposed by Rockwell IIRC in the late 70's for building solar power sats and was horizontal t/o and landing. It solved the heat problem by re-entering empty and thereby having very low loading/heating on the huge wing. The wing was used to hold propellant. It used air breathing hydrogen fueled turboramjets with a little hydrogen oxygen rocket help to take off and switched to all rocket at Mach 6. It was to be flown to orbit multiple times a day from an airport.
Actually the Starship could be a plane if the drag devices were instead wings and it had gear to land on a runway.

[spartainwarrior]

You can get hybrid engines that can switch between an intake and a liquid Oxygen tank

[Platypus-kyls]

I think the biggest advantage to spaceplanes that wasn't mentioned was the accessibility they provide to passengers. While it makes way more sense to use vertical-lift-off now, if we want to see the average person go to space we have to take into account that most people can't handle the extremely large G's of a rocket, especially when the rapid descent could pose a serious health risk (Apollo astronauts faced around 6-7 g's on descent, STS peaked at around 1.6 g's). That does mean, though, you'll be exposed to much more heating, so I think that's honestly the biggest obstacle to making spaceplanes and accessible space travel feasible

[f-r]

I think s spaceplane is just a more elegant solution than blasting massive quantities of fuel out the back of a rocket.

[michalfaraday]

Great video. I think you should´ve mentioned that the most important advantage of a space plane is that by not needing internal oxygen tank until it reaches significant height and speed is that it can be much lighter overall, at least in theory, and because of it a space plane could be single stage to orbit.

[itstimetomakelol]

Do you think it could be possible with an aerospike engine and a specific flight path? Like: Get to an altitude of approx 20 km like an airplane -> Get to an angle of 20° -> Full engine power -> Keep tilting to get into orbit -> Orbit around earth -> (Maybe refuel in orbit to get to the moon)

[ariserusic]

There is a reason why planes even jets have a height limit. Even jets, one of the biggest advancements of humanity can't go to a height beyond its limit or it will fall and not function.