What is the maximum weight a spaceship can take off with?

Question

I'm talking about taking off from Earth, not in space.

Answer 1

There are 2 main factors:

You need to exert thrust enough to counter gravity. Whether that's a 6-inch Estes rocket, or a 365-foot Saturn-V, both need to be light enough such that the thrust can push them up.

You need to have a structure capable of holding together and *harnessing* the thrust. A 10-billion pound engine is great, but if the combustion chamber melts 20 seconds after ignition, that's a problem.

This being said, there's no true 'maximum weight', but there are limitations with building materials. Titanium, steel, aluminum - they have stress limits; so, making the skin thicker, the supports stronger means adding more fuel, which in turn means you have to burn it faster, which means you need more robust engines, in order to get the craft to fly.

Answer 2

It really depends on the spaceship. There is no real standard in spaceship design, some are big, some are small, some are powerful, and some have just enough power to take the crew and itself into space.

Answer 3

The kinds of rockets that are used today (Delta, Atlas, Proton, Ariane, Sea Launch, SpaceX) can carry roughly 10% of the full weight of the whole rocket as a payload. 90% of the rocket is fuel (with a small percentage of that as tank and rocket engine materials), and 10% is the actual thing that goes into space.

The actual weight also depends on where in space the payload is going. For low-earth orbits (LEO) it takes the least amount of energy. The Shuttle flies in LEO. Communication satellites fly in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) which is much further away from the earth than LEO, so it takes more rocket fuel, thus less payload can be carried. Finally, if you want to go to the moon or another planet, that requires reaching escape velocity which means more fuel, and less payload (or a bigger rocket).

Some examples of maximum weights:
- Sea Launch can launch over 6,000 kg into GEO
- Delta II can launch about 2,000 kg into GEO and about 6,000 kg into LEO
- Proton can launch 22,000 kg to LEO and 6,000 kg to GTO
(GTO is an orbit that gets the payload out to GEO, then the payload has to get itself parked into GEO).

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Answer 4

Maximum weight space shuttle can take up is about 30 tons.
Saturn V which took the apolo moon probes was better but they does not exists

Answer 5

All I know is that if Rosie O'Donnell is the payload the spaceship will never make it outta Earth's atmosphere.

Answer 6

depends the type of spaceship on the #1 used type it can hold about 500 to 1,000.

Answer 7

In space the mass can be endless.

Answer 8

Depends on how much fuel you are taking and how much push you can get out of it.

Answer 9

space shuttle: 24,400 kg (53,700 lb) to LEO

Answer 10

twice half the weight