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Re:The Launch Landscape: Small Rockets by gremlinsinc on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:52PM (#27665113)
What about vertical launch from 10k feet up, or even higher on a mountain or something, would that provide a better energy savings?
Re:The Launch Landscape: Small Rockets by SonicScrub on Monday June 28, 2021 @02:00PM (#27665236)
That savings has to be worth the building of expensive infrastructure at altitude, which is unlikely to happen. Air density at 10k feet yields is only 25% less than sea-level, so you're not going to see substantial performance gains. It's much better to focus efforts on choosing a launch location as close to the equator as possible where you can shoot due East (to take advantage of Earth's rotation) without flying over-top of people. This will yield much greater energy savings. There's a good reason why the world's launch locations are where they are.
Re:The Launch Landscape: Small Rockets by gameswithgo on Monday June 28, 2021 @04:24PM (#27667533)
you get more savings being near the equator than being high. if you can manage both you get a very small win that might not be worth it if you are far from infrastructure. better to add a little more fuel than make the satellite get shipped to your remote equatorial mountain