How is it that the?

Question

fastest humans have ever got a space craft to go is somthing like 150,000 miles an hour. Cause in space there is in gravity slowing you down. And if this is true is there a way to go faster like using explosives or somthing.

I really tried not to sound like an idiot so take it easy please.

Answer 1

Gravity doesn't slow you down much. The big kill si the lack of air, which drags you back. So in space the deal is not sspeed, but acceleration. Our speed is limited by the force we can get out of our engines (which actually operate on explosion). To accelerate to a very large speed (such as a few percent of rthe speed of light) woudl take several years with our technology and is not actually necessary for most of our space operations.

The other issue is that as tehre is no air, once you start moving, stopping your engines won't lsow you down- if you want to accelerate to any given speed, you must take anough fuel to deccelerate, if you plan on stopipng- ever.

Answer 2

The problem is fuel.
There is only so much energy in a pound of fuel.
The fuels we use now are as close to explosives as we can make them and still control them.
Think of the space shuttle. It only gets up to about 20,000 MPH, and you have seen those big fuel tanks that are used and drop off to get that little bird up there.
A large part of that is overcoming gravity, but you can see the problem.
Until we find some way of gathering fuel or energy from outside the craft, (solar energy or gravity slingshots around convenient bodies, we're limited to relatively low velocities.
You might want to google or wiki 'gravity slingshot`
'solar sails` and 'bussard ramjet` if you want to pursue this further.

Answer 3

Our speed is limited by our technology.
Most are by chemicial propulsion and nuclear.
There is a limit to how fast these systems can go.

We can increase the speed by sling-shoting around a planet like Jupiter using its gravity to go faster.

The record for the fastest spacecraft of all is held by the twin Helios probes that were placed in orbit around the Sun. Both these vehicles reached top speeds of around 150,000 mph (250,000 km/h) at closest approach to the Sun in their highly elliptical orbits, Helios 2 being marginally the swifter. The massive gravity of the Sun made it possible.

For now, that is the best we can do.

Answer 4

There is gravity in space, only it decreases the further you are from any objects with mass (planets, asteroids, etc.) Gravity is what actually brings satellites / probes to the highest speeds. It's a technique called the gravitational slingshot. We use the gravity of a planet to draw the probe in, and then slingshot it out of that planet's orbit.

Answer 5

When we say space is weightless, we mean that inside the capsule, everything is falling at the same rate, even if it isn't resting on top of anything.

When you're in a circular orbit around the Earth, it takes more fuel to reach a higher orbit, because you have to go uphill to get there. First, you have to accelerate to a faster speed, which takes fuel because the ship has mass; force/mass = acceleration, whether or not there is any gravity around. Then you coast uphill to the top of your new ellyptical orbit. If you don't acclerate again at the top of the hill, you will coast back down to where you left your original orbit.

To orbit Earth 60 miles up, you need to get up to about 18,000 miles per hour. To get complete out of Earth's gravity, you have to start at about 25,000 mph, but when you get past the moon, you'll just be coasting around the sun about as fast as the Earth at about the same speed as Earth. To get to Mars, you need to speed up so you can climb that hill to Mars' higher orbit, and then speed up again to keep from coasting back down the hill.

We design our rockets to get where we want them to go for the least amount of money possible, which is still way too much money. To get there in half the time might cost ten times as much money (just a wild guess). So should we send one fast mission to Mars for $10 billion, or ten slow missions for $1 billion each?

When we send humans to Mars, we might choose to go a little faster, in order to save on food and such. Fewer life-support supplies will make up for more fuel and cut down the total expense.