News JVTech The new Virgin Galactic spacecraft has no wheels at the front, but wood and we know why
Billionaire Richard Branson’s spacecraft, the VSS Unity, which intends to develop space tourism, has a unique feature. A modification on the nose gear that makes takeoff and landing unique on the ship.
No wheels at the front of the spaceship, only wood!
If as a whole Richard Branson’s space shuttle is special, it also adds a notable change. When we imagine a spaceship, we see at least three wheels, one of which is at the front. Virgin Galactic has decided otherwise and replaced the wheel with a piece of wood. A real piece of wood to land on.
The nose gear has thus been replaced by a skid with a piece of laminated wood at its end. If that sounds absurd, especially for a reusable shuttle, the reasons are obvious. This is mainly to slow down the machine during landing. Indeed, a wheel reduces the speed, but the friction with the ground remains low because of the rotation. Wood, on the other hand, has a great frictional force, which offers much better braking. This both reduces the weight of complex and heavy landing gear, but also the braking system does not need to be so large.
In such a device, every kilo is important. That’s as much extra fuel as it’s possible to carry and therefore more range.
Replacing the nose gear with wood has consequences
The first problem of not having a front wheel is that it is impossible to take off autonomously. The good news is that the ship was not designed to take off alone. It requires another device which takes it to an altitude of more than 14 km and then releases it. At this moment, the motors engage and the thrust allows you to climb towards the thermosphere. This is the stratum around the Earth at an altitude between 50 and 400 km.
The second consequence of this technology is that after landing, the shuttle cannot move on its own. It must therefore be towed to bring it back to the warehouse. Finally, it is that the piece of wood is for single use. It must therefore be replaced each time. Even if it is clearly not the most expensive part to change at each takeoff.
Go higher! but how far?
There has been a debate for years on the attitude of what is considered to be Space. If for a long time this border was fixed at 80 km, by Von Kármán, many scientists rather militate so that it is at 100 km. Today, the Kármán line sits at this higher elevation.
Based on this principle, the flight of the VSS Unity 22 having reached 86.1 km, Richard Branson did not go into space. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos, a few days later, reached 107 km. The authorship of the first tourist crew to have gone into space is therefore debatable.
To add to the confusion, even at the ISS altitude of 390 km, it is still Earth. Indeed, you have to go 965 km for the atmosphere to be so thin that it hardly exists anymore.
Even if the reality is that at 86 km or 107 km, the view remains breathtaking!
