Re:Why Bezos’ rocket is unprecedented–and worth taking serio...
by abecedarius on Tuesday September 13, 2016 @04:41PM
(#12492039)
> That's not survivable for people.
Got me wondering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force#Human_tolerance reports an early experiment of a human taking 10g for 1 minute. That'd add up to 5.8 km/s, which is still under delta-v to LEO (9.4 km/s or more including air drag according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit). But it's close, and the Wikipedia page doesn't say it's an upper bound. OTOH at 10g to 9.8km/s (higher delta-v to be conservative and for easier math) the track would need to be more like 490km long (and it'd take ~100sec). And maybe the deceleration on hitting the atmosphere would be worse, I don't know. It sounds more plausible for cargo.
Got me wondering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force#Human_tolerance reports an early experiment of a human taking 10g for 1 minute. That'd add up to 5.8 km/s, which is still under delta-v to LEO (9.4 km/s or more including air drag according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit). But it's close, and the Wikipedia page doesn't say it's an upper bound. OTOH at 10g to 9.8km/s (higher delta-v to be conservative and for easier math) the track would need to be more like 490km long (and it'd take ~100sec). And maybe the deceleration on hitting the atmosphere would be worse, I don't know. It sounds more plausible for cargo.