Space Tourism Isn’t Frivolous, or Impossible

Re:Space Tourism Isn’t Frivolous, or Impossible by msandford on Tuesday November 04, 2014 @04:18PM (#8559092)

Basically that everything else equal you'd prefer to exit the accelerator straight up rather than horizontally to minimize the time spent in the thick atmosphere slowing down. I agree that a round track is totally nuts.

And you're right, I did misread what you had written earlier. Thanks for engaging rather than downvoting.

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Re:Space Tourism Isn’t Frivolous, or Impossible by Retric on Tuesday November 04, 2014 @07:44PM (#8559948)

Sure, I could see I was not getting my point across.

As to vertical track, you might be able to build a 2 mile near vertical track but you end up adding a lot of energy more cheaply with a horizontal track and for the most part it's energy that's important as you can trade horizontal energy for vertical energy inside the atmosphere. Don't forget for moderate cost you could use balloons to get a few tons to 50+km up where the air is vary thin. But altitude is just not that much of an issue.

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