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I once mentioned this to an old NASA engineer who worked on the moon landings. He corrected me and pointed out that it's still possible to launch - you would ju

I once mentioned this to an old NASA engineer who worked on the moon landings. He corrected me and pointed out that it's still possible to launch - you would just need more staging. Obviously at very high levels of gravity, the staging requirements would be extreme. I'm not sure what it would be if Earth was 50% bigger. Maybe someone can do the math or share a link to a page that's done it already.

inteleng 8y ago
There is a point where surface gravity is sufficiently high that in order to put a few kilograms in orbit the "rocket" would have to weigh as much as the entire planet, even if you use the most efficient chemical fuel we've invented. Physics doesn't lie.