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by short connery on August 24th, 2005

short connery

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Why can't the Space Shuttle land on its own when returning to Earth?

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  • by Dahdscear on August 25th, 2005

    Dahdscear

    The Space Shuttle does land on its own when returning. Or do you mean "why does it need help from a control tower when it lands?" Although the astronauts are highly trained, like any good pilots they still need ground control to guide them in upon landing.

    Perhaps you mean "Why can't the Space Shuttle take-off on its own when leaving Earth?" In that case you must look towards the extremely large amount of force needed to overcome the pull of gravity on such a large object as the Space Shuttle. It takes a tremendous amount of thrust to propel something that large out of the Earth's atmosphere. You can therefore think of the Space Shuttle in two parts: the Shuttle itself (which need very little propulsion to move in the vacuum of space) and the "rocket" it rides on to escape the Earth's atmosphere (lots of thrust and engine and fuel). Essentially this "rocket" is made up of fuel tanks and engines. Once the fuel runs out the tanks and engines are released and fall to Earth (carefully choreographed to fall into an empty patch of ocean and be recovered by NASA.)

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