3 ms·
Wouldn't the reduced mass of the Earth's sphere of influence be reduced over time, thereby reducing the energy required to launch subsequent payloads?
by Ancapistani 5y ago
Wouldn't the reduced mass of the Earth's sphere of influence be reduced over time, thereby reducing the energy required to launch subsequent payloads?
- acchow 5y agoYes
- iso1631 5y agoYes, there's all sorts of odd things that would happen with rotational energy too, hence you don't need as much as if you calculated it based on lifting 1kg at a time from the earth's surface. You'd need about 10^32 joules. If you didn't account for that you'd need about twice as much energy, which is about 10^32 joules. In theory you could simply vaporize the earth with antimatter, converting it to energy, rather than trying to disasemble it. That would produce far more energy than the gravitational binding energy, so unless you happen to have a planet sized lump of antimatter around you'd have to generate it with more than 10^32 joules.