Editing Talk:3093: Drafting

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The efficiency loss is presuamably because the exhaust from the lead rocket is pushing back on the following rocket. It's also really hot, so the follower may be destroyed. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:27, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Anyone else getting lots of "site is experiencing difficulties" errors [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:28, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
:Yes.  It must be drafting behind another, more powerful rocket-themed web page and was experiencing some of that "99% inefficiency." [[Special:Contributions/172.68.26.136|172.68.26.136]] 15:56, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
: " getting lots of "site is experiencing difficulties" errors "  Yes. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 16:22, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
:Yes. From the experience of another forum I'm in, it's probably a sudden uptick on (possibly AI-feeding?) site-scraping. On that site, the number of viewers suddenly increased from a few hundred people online, maximum, at any given time, to tens of thousands. The owner of the site put an additional "are you human" check in the way (after about a week of it), and it fell back to less than a hundred simultaneous connections (not that far off the actual observable user-traffic, with a couple of handfuls of Guest lurkers at any given time, rather than the pre-slowdown peaks of three or four times the provably genuine users).
:That site didn't have Cloudflare, unlike here, and didn't use that as a solution. I would have ''hoped'' that this would have mitigated it here, though. Possibly, however, things could have already been hundreds of times worse without it as it is, hard to know for sure.
:And though my reasoning of the cause is just a guess, I'm sure others have noticed that the amount of 503/Connection Issue responses we're getting has substantially reduced the spam-level numbers of "goes nowhere, does nothing" new accounts that this site tends to get (its other anti-spam protections having long since prevented most of those from doing anything, while still seemingly allowing genuine users to interact). Hard to fully qualify that as a positive, but I suspect that genuinely driven 'honest editors' are more likely to persevere and get past the current bottlenecks, so it might (in certain, rather limited, terms) ''improve'' the editing experience. (The other site started to be ''really'' hammered (to then prompt calls for its subsequent changes) on 11/May, which seems to me to coincide very closely with the drop in new spam-style account names on here, which seems to corroborate it being the same global issue causing both sites problems.)
:Not that I wouldn't appreciate less of the 503s/etc. It definitely is a direct annoyance. Which I can't see being solved any time soon (if Cloudflare doesn't blanket add to its proxying protections, itself). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.229.49|172.68.229.49]] 16:34, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
::Also here. Had to reload the page three times before I could begin writing. And will likely have to reload or try again several times before this is posted --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:06, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Added notes on difference between friction and expellant propulsion [[Special:Contributions/172.69.212.151|172.69.212.151]] 16:14, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Just a comment about drafting and cycle-sport. It might be used in peletons and certain velodrome events (i.e. not "pursuit" ones). But in my own part of the sport, time-trialling, it is actually ''not allowed'' (excepting in team time-trials), as competitors that have just been passed by a faster rider are not supposed to hang on (figuratively, of course) to their wheel. Nor should you try to catch your minute-man just so that you can stick behind them. Also, the rules on the amount of traffic allowed on the roads during an event, as well as being a direct safety aspect on the busiest of roads, are meant to remove any excessive advantage from passing traffic (especially lorries) pushing/pulling the competitors along. This doesn't mean that the occasional ride won't get some assistance. A fast tractor may be too slow for a fast rider to stay behind, who would really need to pass it when safe to do so, but could be going just fast enough for a slower one to benefit (but at the risk of being spotted doing so and the issue addressed appropriately). But competitor-on-competitor co-pacing (or accompanied riding of any other unofficial kind) is ''definitely a no-no''. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.229.49|172.68.229.49]] 16:34, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

This comic made me think of this video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yuMcAS_wRRQ  [[Special:Contributions/172.69.212.145|172.69.212.145]] 17:45, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

The exhaust of the lead rocket might increase the density of the gas around the following rocket, thus affecting the efficiency of the following rocket's engine.  (Giving the effect of being at a lower altitude if in atmospheric flight.)  Rockets generally are less efficient in higher density atmosphere, and are designed for a particular density.
If the following rocket was close enough, it might alter the efficiency of the lead rocket by increasing density near the lead rockets engine, or by providing something similar to ground effect for the lead rocket.  (The extent of such effects would also depend on any atmosphere.)  [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.19|108.162.245.19]] 19:12, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Since rockets often travel at supersonic speeds, it seems like the costs and benefits of drafting might be altered, compared to land vehicles drafting at subsonic speeds.  (Would both rockets have shock waves in front, would the shockwave from the trailing rocket interact with the first rocket, ...)  Seems like it would be worth mentioning, but I couldn't find much about supersonic slipstreaming.  Since I am not a rocket scientist, I wouldn't hazard a guess what might happen.  [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.115|162.158.41.115]] 19:35, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

I am aware that bicycle races exist and except for occasional articles about cheating (the most interesting method was extracting one's red blood cells, storing up quite a lot, and putting them back in right before the race) don't care. Geese. Drafting is why I see a vee of geese where the leader peels back and becomes a follower accompanied by a bunch of geese that are just a flock. I think that fighter planes can use drafting. I've noticed the effect when a semi blows past me.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.202|172.71.222.202]] 06:26, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Ironically, Elon Musk has just announced that when the Starship hot-stages from the Super Heavy (meaning one rocket closely following another, both with engines firing, much like the picture), some of the vent ports at the top of the Super Heavy will be blocked so that the thrust from Starship will come out directionally and push the Super Heavy in a predictable direction... thus increasing its efficiency! [[User:Cphoenix|Cphoenix]] ([[User talk:Cphoenix|talk]]) 06:43, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Also people seem to be ignoring a comically enormous flaw with this method (no matter how well the exhaust of the leading rocket would provide a slipstream -- or obstacle -- for the trailing rocket): it requires TWO rockets. For example, let's assume drafting works perfectly with cars and such, to the point that the trailing car uses no fuel at all, which would be an incredible efficiency increase. It is not a reasonable idea to suggest improving your car efficiency like that by buying a second (bigger) car and having it somehow drive in front of yours, since it would cost you the second car and the fuel for the second car. With cars, it isn't unreasonable to expect maybe a second vehicle will be going the same path and create that slipstream for you, but rockets aren't as widespread, so at most this would only be applicable (with dubious results as the other commenters point out) if mission planners grouped various launches together at the same time so the launch of one mission would benefit from the launch of another mission (with the starting launch always having to pay the full price for their launch). {{unsigned ip|162.158.122.196|07:07, 24 May 2025}}
:If 'rocket drafting' worked like vehicle drafting, but the {{w|Tsiolkovsky rocket equation|Rocket Equation}} ''also'' applied, then conceivably (especially if you get towards 100% efficiency for the dragged vehicle) you'd be able to deliver a whole lot more mass (either unspent fuel or extra cargo with less fuel) to the point at which the guide-rocket has to peel off. It might be considered similar to adding extra disposable lower-stages to the rearwards rocket, instead of giving it a forwards one, but without the need for ''those'' stages to effectively have the payload capacity to carry a (significantly) passive assisted rocket on ''their'' nose.
:(In fact, because a drafting vehicle can smooth the turbulent drag behind the lead vehicle, improving ''both'' their effective efficiencies, if tucked in just right behind the right kind of vehicle, sending two rockets up in tandem would (with such mythical 'drafting' in operation) potentially get both loads up further (and/or with more liftable mass) than either alone. So be sending a rocket up to LEO and trailing it with one that you want to go to GEO, the conceipt would be that you can do the both better. Or just get two up to LEO/GEO/wherever but with less fuel than two missions. And, indeed, we see that the front rocket is probably a 2+2b configuration, and the rear one is probably just a 2-stage (give or take any 'orbital bus' stage, within each faring), so the expectations may be that a normally insufficient unboosted lower rocket is achieving an orbit (or even eventually escape from Earth to lunar/inter-planatery transfer) that normally it would ''absolutely'' require its own additional boosters/third-stages+ for.)
:Of course, rocket drafting as paridied here is bunkum (not helpful, and probably counterproductive). At best, the following rocket could be used to nudge (physically, or by bringing in its supersonic shockwave in close enough behind the lead to lend impetous to the front rocket's rearward thrust) and act as an additional 'loose booster' to add to the initial rocket's eventual travel. But the engineering, and coordination, behind that is very much less ...useful... than just designing the first rocket configuration to have ''extra'' extra boosters (like the Energia base stage, rather than the reduced Energia-M version, say), or creating extra stages for the stack (effectively like converting a Saturn-IB into a Saturn-V, though that did involve far more change than pushing a new Stage-1 onto the bottom of the original two). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.226|141.101.98.226]] 09:53, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

When cyclists start having afterburner set up, the same problem will occur on TourDeFrance. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.122.252|172.71.122.252]] 15:32, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
:When geese get afterburners, will hunters bring home pre-cooked birds? Obligatory note to hunters:  Some geese are legally protected in some countries. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.88|172.71.167.88]] 18:43, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Biggest advantage: You can toast marshmallows on the way up as well as down. [[User:Lordpishky|Lordpishky]] ([[User talk:Lordpishky|talk]]) 17:19, 24 May 2025 (UTC)