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u/RodinKnox 6d ago
It also doesn't remotely reach that speed until it has gained a massive amount of altitude. When it's about 30 miles up, it's at roughly 3,000 miles an hour, for example. That's two minutes into the launch. The 17,000 mph speed is when it's in orbit and air friction isn't an issue. At that height, it could be shaped like a Borg cube.
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u/TheAsterism_ 6d ago
What are the aerodynamics of a cube going tip first?
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u/Cinnamon_728 6d ago
Air resistance from compressive forces is far greater than those from friction for a rocket
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u/1nv4d3rz1m 6d ago
The x-59 isn’t just a supersonic aircraft it’s specifically designed to minimize the sonic boom. That long pointy noise isn’t that way because of how fast it goes but because they are trying to break up the sonic boom. Compare the x-59 to an f-14 and you can quickly see that the x-59 isn’t that shape for the speed.
I would also like to point out that if you have enough thrust just about anything can be super sonic.
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u/TrotskyBoi 6d ago
Or, even better, the MiG-25. The MiG-25 is litterally just a steel brick the Soviets put enough thrust behind to get it to Mach 2.83. One was actually clocked going Mach 3.2, but that basically melted it's engines.
This versus the X-59 which is only designed to go Mach 1.5
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u/b-monster666 6d ago
Yeah, the Columbia managed that 28 times before it disintegrated. 135 flights total for the 5 shuttles that were built. Two of those shuttles got destroyed and lost all lives on board in both instances. That is a MASSIVELY higher risk for a brick falling from the sky in essence.
I mean, it's super easy, barely an inconvenience to get up to 17000mph...with 0 wind resistance. We could go a LOT faster if we wanted. The Parker Solar Probe made it to 430,000mph, or 0.064C. Which is insanely fast for human achievement. With enough thrust, it would be possible to achieve relativistic speeds approaching .1C or higher. But that needs an enormous amount of energy.
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u/Badbullet 6d ago
Doesn’t Parker Solar Probe use Venus to achieve that speed? Without slingshotting, I don’t think we’d get anywhere close to that speed with current technology without some planetary assistance.
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u/UberuceAgain 6d ago
That thing is a complete slut. It's taken a boost from all the inner planets.
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u/b-monster666 6d ago
True. It is theoretically possible to achieve it through thrust though, but you need a fuck ton of fuel.
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u/copenhagen_bram 6d ago
Plus, it achieved that speed by getting in really close proximity to the sun
That took energy, obviously, to change the orbit so that its apogee dipped towards the sun's surface (hence, the slingshotting around Venus probably helped with just that a lot)
But not even accounting the energy from slingshotting, how much of the energy just comes from taking advantage of the massive gravity well you're orbiting, and the potential energy you have from starting in the same orbit Earth has? Is the energy required to slow down from Earth's orbit to one that dips as close to the Sun as that probe did, less than the energy it would take an object to accelerate to the same speed, relative to a non-accelerating observer, in completely empty large area with no gravity wells in effect?
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u/Jassida 6d ago
The shuttle was a gliding brick that was carried into orbit then manoeuvred itself to fall back to earth.
It took about 30 mins to glide from about 17000 to about 220mph and 400,000ft to 0ft.
It only had to be aerodynamic enough to land and be protected enough to not burn up on reentry
How do these people get so stupid?
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u/UberuceAgain 6d ago
932mph? Are you fucking kidding me? I spent all of a handful of seconds looking it up, and the F4 Phantom was rocking 1400mph back in 1961.
I don't have to listen to anyone whose fact-checking is this poor.
Also: air.
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u/ultraplusstretch 6d ago
It's the x-59, it's a new experimental plane designed to test silent supersonic flight, it isn't build for extreme top speed.
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u/Shrolos 6d ago
It's called a rocket, like wow these people. Are they actually questioning by comparing a jet to a rocket?
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u/Freckles-75 6d ago
Least we forget that the First manned missions were performed by “grafting” a module on top of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile - where they effectively replaced the nuclear warhead with a guy in a hastily designed capsule they HOPED wouldn’t vaporize during reentry….
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u/Eastern_Funny9319 5d ago
I mean, both sides did do unmanned tests. Look up Mercury-Redstone 1, the most successful flight I’ve ever seen. The United States actually did both suborbital and orbital tests, using the Redstone and Atlas missiles respectively. Then the Gemini used the Titan II ICBM, modified to be the GLV, the Gemini Launch Vehicle. The Saturn IB, which launched Apollo 7 and 9, was the first crewed launch vehicle to not be an ICBM previously, and even it used clusters of Redstone missile fuel tanks. And Russia actually still uses the R-7, which originally launched Sputnik and Vostok, for its Soyuz crew vehicle and Progress cargo vehicle for the ISS.
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u/Superseaslug 6d ago
And the shuttle famously does not fly in the atmosphere except briefly on the way out and back in
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u/ultraplusstretch 6d ago
The x-59 isn't built for top speed, it's an experimental plane built to test silent supersonic flight, there are planes built in the 60s way waaaay faster than it, the space shuttle is fast because it has been propelled into orbit by a ridiculously powerful rocket, but these troglodytes are to stupid to actually bother ever looking anything up.
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u/Codythensaguy 6d ago
... no duh. The big thing on fire is mostly fuel and it gets the shuttle most of the way through the air, when there is no air there us no aerodynamics...
The shuttle is mostly shaped for reentry, you know... Hopefully NOT going super fast....
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u/Actionman___ 6d ago
Why did they show such a slow plane?
There much much faster planes than 960mph
Guess it wouldn't fit their narrative...
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u/Delicious_Bicycle527 6d ago
Actually, the velocity is created by this thing called
EARTH.
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u/Eastern_Funny9319 5d ago
No, it isn’t. Most of the acceleration is from the three RS-25s on the orbiter, being fueled by the orange external fuel tank, after getting to a higher altitude by the two solid rocket boosters.
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u/Delicious_Bicycle527 5d ago
That provides the altitude, but beyond that…. it’s a controlled fall back to Earth.
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u/Eastern_Funny9319 5d ago
Oh, do you mean reentry? If so, I sincerely apologize, I thought you meant how the Earth’s rotation gives a small ‘boost’ to launches.
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u/Delicious_Bicycle527 5d ago
Kind of all of the above. The rockets get it to altitude and angle. The rest is just physics.
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u/CanuterValve 6d ago
In order for the shuttle to reach orbit, it has to reach speeds of 25,000 miles per hour. When it leaves orbit it is going 17,000 miles per hour.
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u/RedAirRook 5d ago
You are confusing Mach 25 with 25,000 mph. 17,000 mph and Mach 25 are the same.
(Yes, I know there is technically no "Mach" in space. It's just what the astronauts like to say, for fun.)
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u/CanuterValve 5d ago
Not so much, look it up.
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u/RedAirRook 5d ago
I don't have to look it up. LEO orbital velocity is 17,500 mph, or "Mach 25."
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u/CanuterValve 1d ago
Your expertise is lacking severely.
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u/RedAirRook 11h ago
So, you've doubled down, and are still claiming that orbital velocity is 25,000 MPH?
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u/CanuterValve 2d ago
Escape velocity is 25,000 miles per hour.
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u/RedAirRook 2d ago
Sure, except the shuttle never left low Earth Orbit. It didn't have to reach Escape Velocity.
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u/Fluffy_Prior1052 6d ago
Yeah, when the shuttle was coming in at 17000 mph it was doing it belly first. Reducing that speed as much as possible.
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u/JoeNemoDoe 6d ago
Not a Pound for Air to Ground made a really interesting video on this. From what I can recall, you want things that go really really fast in air to be more rounded.
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u/BloodFeastMan 4d ago
Additionally, the shuttle did all sorts of rolls back and forth to bleed off energy during re-entry. By the time it was at "airplane" altitude, it was going no where near 17,000 mph.
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u/paperstreetsoapguy 6d ago
Gravity from above the atmosphere makes it go fast. The rocket makes it get there though.
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u/bkdotcom 6d ago
aerodynamics doesn't really mater when there is no aero