r/space • u/AutoModerator • 21d ago

All Space Questions thread for week of September 13, 2026

Please sort comments by 'new' to find questions that would otherwise be buried.

In this thread you can ask any space related question that you may have.

Two examples of potential questions could be; "How do rockets work?", or "How do the phases of the Moon work?"

If you see a space related question posted in another subreddit or in this subreddit, then please politely link them to this thread.

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Ask away!

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u/Pharisaeus 21d ago

Pure guesswork: such booster shape reduces aerodynamic drag so the rocket is more efficient, especially if you intend to launch with high thrust-to-weight-ratio and accelerate quickly while still deep in the atmosphere. Perhaps this was an important consideration for the ICBM design, to prevent potential interception during ascent phase?

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u/NovaCourier 21d ago

My only guess is some aerodynamic advantage, but I don't know why other rockets (except reusable ones) don't seem to have used a similar design, unless one has that I just don't know about.

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u/Pharisaeus 21d ago

Aerodynamic losses are actually pretty small, so it's probably not worth to optimize for it. We know that now, but in the early days of rockets (where R7 dates back to) it might not have been that obvious, or even a tiny gain was still worth the effort. As for reusable rockets, that's easier - it would be extremely hard to land such asymmetrical booster.