Spaceships: Are They Automobiles?

"Matt Brown" (superfastmatt) 11/05/2019 at 13:10 • Filed to: None

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Conventional automobile internal combustion engines are complicated and crude pieces of machinery. The internal combustion-ing is one small part of a series of events turning discrete, small explosions into linear, and then rotational motion. All while acting as an ine fficient air pump to continue drawing the oxidizer into the combustion chamber. They are turds polished over decades of development and billions of miles of refinement. They should be called “internal combustion and pressure to mechanical rotational power machines,” or something.

Rocket engines? Way simpler. Way more complicated, actually, but fundamentally simpler in the way it turns the internal combustion into motion.

When somebody says automobile, they are usually talking about those four-wheeled things with internal combustion engines. But what about spaceships? Well, as we have already clearly established, you do not need wheels to be an automobile. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Automobiles. Airplanes? Automobiles. You don’t need wheels, you just need to be mobile automatically. Plenty of ways to do that if you have enough power.

What about other space ship propulsion, like ion thrusters, or solar sails? You don’t need the fuel source on board to be an automobile. Cars don’t have their entire fuel source onboard, they get oxygen from the air to move. The point is that there are people in it, and it is moving automatically.

Group discussion: Is this an automobile?

Some would say that since a spaceship is an automobile, and a car is an automobile, then this would be a doubleautomobile. I disagree; I believe it is less of an automobile than it was before launch. The electric powertrain on the Roadster doesn’t help it to be mobile while floating around in space. This would be like if you put wheels and an engine on a boat, drilling giant holes in the hull to get the axles through. You didn’t make anything more mobile, you just ruined a boat to make a shitty car. Still technically an automobile, just not a good one.

Spaceships are arguably the most auto of mobiles. They go to fucking space. That is more mobile than anything. And they do it with a mega shitload of auto. Just tons of flaming explosive thrust automatically mobiling them into space.

Spaceships are automobiles.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Matt Brown 11/05/2019 at 13:13

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Isn’t orbit essentially perpetual motion?  Falling forever.

For Sweden > Matt Brown 11/05/2019 at 13:15

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Yes

Nick Has an Exocet > Matt Brown 11/05/2019 at 13:19

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They are vehicles but they are not all automobiles.

Automobile is defined as “a road vehicle, typically with four wheels, powered by an internal combustion engine or electric motor and able to carry a small number of people.”

Also, small correction, ion thrusters carry fuel with them. It’s just not typical combustible fuel - basically, you need something to strip ions from . Xenon, Liquid caesium, Bismuth, Iodine, Xenon, Hydrogen, Lithium vapor, Argon, Krypton, and Water have all been demonstrated as propellant for an ion thruster.

wkiernan > Matt Brown 11/05/2019 at 13:26

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SUVs, to be particular (space utility vehicles).

Matt Brown > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 11/05/2019 at 13:31

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B ut how do you get to orbit?

Automobile.

facw > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 11/05/2019 at 13:31

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Depends where you are orbiting. The ISS for example hits enough atmosphere (not much at all, but enough) that it slows down and drifts into a lower orbit (increasing drag). It needs periodic boosts to maintain its orbit.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Matt Brown 11/05/2019 at 13:33

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Doesn’t God just reach down and grab you?

Ash78, voting early and often > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 11/05/2019 at 13:34

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Yes, but the Cardinal said I’m not supposed to talk about it.

PS9 > Matt Brown 11/05/2019 at 13:45

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No. A spaceship is not an automobile. Putting an automobile into space does not make it a spaceship. That you can put an automobile in space does not make spaceships automobiles.

For something to be an automobile, wheels, tires and some external infrastructure like roads - or unpaved driveable areas if there are none - and gravity are required. An automobile is dependent on a terrestrial environment. A spaceship is not.

If an automobile has significant modification to make it able to function as a spaceship does, its not an automobile anymore; to a vehicle that can regularly achieve escape velocity from an earth-like planet or larger, wheels, tires and a terrestrial propulsion system would be totally vestigal, as flying would always be faster. In turn, modding out space travel in leiu of a sick turbo LS1 and some sport cup 2s would be like removing your Ryzen 9 from your PC and ‘upgrading’ to the original 8086. A spaceship would not become an automobile, but would be modified to carry one.

Spaceships are not cars, cars are not spaceships. We've no reason to muddle the definitions of these different travel technologies. 

MrDakka > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 11/05/2019 at 15:51

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For all intents and purposes for our time scale, yes, but the Earth’s (or whatever celestial body you’re orbiting) rotation does slow a minuscule amount

pip bip - choose Corrour > Matt Brown 11/06/2019 at 02:59

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yes