4 ms·
Not much at all. Low earth orbit is ~200km so the mountain is only helping by 1.5% of the needed altitude. Altitude is not even the most difficult part of gett
by karkisuni 10y ago
Not much at all. Low earth orbit is ~200km so the mountain is only helping by 1.5% of the needed altitude.
Altitude is not even the most difficult part of getting to orbit. Getting to the necessary horizontal speed to stay in space takes a hell of a lot more fuel than going straight up.
- velox_io 10y agoSo say a 4000m launchpad is feasible, that's 2% of the needed altitude. While gravity will be roughly the same (yeah it's higher altitute, but there's the mass from the mountain). There is much less atmosphere* (~50% less pressure & 1/3 less of it to get through). Given that payload to fuel ratio is roughly 1:10, this does seem to add up to a significant saving. *Air pressure numbers http://www.mide.com/pages/air-pressure-at-altitude-calculator http://www.mide.com/pages/air-pressure-at-altitude-calculato...
- karkisuni 10y agoyou're missing the point. altitude and drag losses are nothing compared to horizontal velocity. you need to be going 7.8km/s. Per second! That takes a lot more energy than gaining any kind of altitude or overcoming atmospheric drag. It's not significant savings.