> once we're up, its just a matter of force over time to create a nice orbit.

It depends what you mean by "up there". ChatGpt tells me you'd free fall from 1000 km to 100km in about 8 minutes. It also did the math that you'd need 1.65G of sideways thrust to reach orbital speed. That's quite a bit of force for spacecraft sized objects.

If you have an actual space elevator, sure, you can go to close to geosynchronous altitude and by that time you'd have enormous sideways velocity just by being dragged sideways by space elevator and indeed it would be easy to propel yourself to orbit (above a certain altitude my intuition tells me you could let go of the rope and while you'd end up on an eliptise you'd still be in orbit)

>ChatGpt tells me you'd free fall from 1000 km to 100km in about 8 minutes

You trusted an LLM to do the maths when it is just s = 5t^2?

Not quite; g drops materially between 100 km and 1000 km. 8 minutes I believe is quite close, whereas 5t^2 (or even 4.9t^2) will lead to underestimating time.

The radius of the earth is around 6300km. The difference in g at the start (between 6400km and 7400km) is 25%. But gets less as you fall. So it might make somewhere around a 10-15% difference overall? So s=5t^2 is fine unless you need a super accurate figure, in which case you need to do some calculus. I would trust an LLM with calculus even less.

It's not that simple though. The rocket equation still applies so it's almost as hard to do (you just get rid of atmospheric drag), and failed launches are also extra catastrophic.

Even more, your delta v required is still huge. I can't be bothered to run the numbers right now but most of the delta v is in the orbital velocity, not in the altitude.

Delta v feels reductive, since your fighting negative acceleration to go up and a fraction of that to go laterally, no?

> since your fighting negative acceleration to go up and a fraction of that to go laterally

They’re both acceleration. At high thrust, virtually equivalent.

They’re the same thing. Either you go sideways really fast, or go straight up really far (geo-synchronous distance).

Either way, you need the same total velocity delta.

Energy for 1kg to reach LEO (800km * 1kg * 9.8m/s2) ~ 8MJ

Energy to reach LEO velocity ~ (1/2 * 1kg * (8km/s)^2) ~ 32MJ

The rocket fuel needed to produce that 40 MJ weighs close to 1 kg, especially when you include the oxidiser. So the energy needed to accelerate 1kg of payload to LEO velocity is much more.

That whole "tyranny of the rocket equation" thing is why I am surprised the actual first stage for launching a rocket is NOT a ground based reusable "up-chucker".

Basically, I would have thought that any momentum that can be imparted to the rocket before it has to rely on its self propulsion would be a huge help. Not talking about eliminating self propulsion, just an assist so the rocket could carry a larger payload or be smaller or whatever.

IE like a variation on Jules Verne's big gun for throwing the payload up there but engineered to be plausible and having the rocket still be self propelled. And safe.

But we don't seem to do this. So why?

Edit: First part of video [0]. Apparently it's not completely dumb. Just stupid-hard/impossible to do practically at the size required for big rockets and payloads. But small ones might work. Maybe.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWYn5hl4QWg

Building your rocket to survive the upchucker costs more than the savings from being upchucked.

Chuckers are the optimal large scale solution for airless bodies, but they're horizontal. You spread the acceleration out over a very long distance so you don't need a super beefy spacecraft and your humans won't turn to goo. Basically, a maglev train except it has track above as well as below and it doesn't have a maximum speed. Wrap one around the lunar equator and it can eject anywhere from sundiver to interstellar escape with human-tolerable acceleration.

Except that you save maybe 30% of the cost to just launch from Earth. Once youre off planet you're over half way to anywhere, and you don't need to land on the Moon to go further

The structural support needed to keep the rocket from crumpling under the throw is extra weight to carry the rest of the way.

This is why Starship is aiming for a catch rather than legs. Legs that work at 1g added too much weight.

I've also wondered about a balloon launch. Strap the rocket to an enormous blimp, it handles the initial 1-2m/s acceleration, saving an enormous first volley of rocket fuel needed to break objects at rest out of their state of rest.

After the rocket is clear, activate compressors inside of the blimp and return it to base for re-use.

But the energy needed is not an indicator of what is difficult or dangerous. Leaving the atmosphere intact is the most difficult part of launching a rocket going by failure rate. Of those that reach space, those that still fail often took damage from the launch.

Once you're in space, force over distance until your fuel runs out.

Failures rate is even less a suitable indicator. Going up 100km is achievable by a simple single stage solid fuel rocket. Going to orbit requires way way more complexity, including a giant first stage that can fail in atmosphere.

The best way I’ve seen it described is that the first 9.8 m/s² of thrust only makes you hover in place. So the more g forces you generate the higher the efficiency of the engine - as long as thrust per kg of fuel doesn’t dip too far.

This all changes in outer space, where 0.01g is a valid propulsion mechanism for long duration missions.

Yup. Look at the launch trajectory of the Webb telescope. The upper stage engine was too weak for the orbital insertion and the booster had to waste energy putting it higher than need be so the upper stage engine had altitude to trade for time to keep the telescope from hitting the atmosphere.

But it was the optimum solution because that engine had a long burn to take it to L2. Hauling less engine to L2 was worth more than the loss of the engine not being powerful enough to fight gravity.

God bless the Webb team but if a manager came to me to pitch a software project with as many sequential events that had to go perfect I would have told him to fuck right off. After I stopped laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.

I made a pikachu face when they returned the first image.

It is unbelievable really. That team should do some things on earth, like fix healthcare or implement a national rail system.

It's probably a lot simpler to get something to a Lagrange point, unfortunately.

Way fewer variables.

Actually, not quite. You tolerate a bit of extra fire in exchange for reduced gravity loss. Going straight up until you clear atmosphere is not the minimum energy trajectory.