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u/rysy0o0 10d ago
It would cost a lot of money to haul all the rocket parts and fuel on top of a mountain
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u/Flat_Lengthiness3361 10d ago
and a lot of fuel probably
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u/thebestoflimes 10d ago
Just use Sherpas
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u/CormundCrowlover 10d ago
It would cost a lot of Sherpas.
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u/WiseWorldliness5513 10d ago
Have we tried giving the Sherpa’s rockets to help them move things faster uphill?
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u/CormundCrowlover 10d ago
But wouldn't it cost a lot of fuel?
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u/sivartimus 10d ago
Yes but we have Sherpas for that
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u/NotGonnaRage 10d ago
With rockets so it's faster
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u/oryx_za 10d ago edited 9d ago
Have we just solved unemployment in nepal?
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u/Acceptingoptimist 10d ago
It's the perpetual motion machine right under our noses.
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u/SaltyPressure7583 10d ago
Unfortunately i think Nepal just sorted that out yesterday. Rip
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u/PineappleShard 10d ago
Sherpas all the way down.
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u/sabotsalvageur 10d ago
What is propellant if not a constant stream of microscopic sherpas being dispatched in the direction opposite the rocket’s intended thrust vector?
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u/MadDocHolliday 10d ago
Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Sherpas are the powerhouse of the space program.
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u/jakeStacktrace 10d ago
I'm sorry I had already forgotten, I know we just went over that. Implement it.
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u/Dozer_the_Khajiit 10d ago
Sometimes reddit sucks.
Sometimes it's kind of awesome.
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u/ChronoMonkeyX 10d ago
God bless this rocket house and all those who dwell within this rocket house.
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u/Flimsy_Mountain_3721 10d ago
Bypass the rockets and just use Sherpas to deploy into low earth orbit
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u/AtlanticPortal 10d ago
Llamas?
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u/Apprehensive-Taro707 10d ago
Dalai Lama can do it. But he won't help Chinese Rockets.
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u/Overall-Mycologist-5 10d ago
it's dangerous, I think sherpas are so tired of rich mf showing off by climbing some hill, so at first possibility they will hijack the rocket and run to Mars
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u/Wild_Smurf 10d ago
Jokes on them. It’ll only be a matter of time until someone tries to follow them to mars to climb Olympus Mons.
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u/johnaross1990 10d ago
I dunno man, I bet it’s a pretty lucrative racket.
There’s no shortage of rich pricks desperate to queue in the death zone so they can can take a picture.
And Sherpas have the business on lock. Who else can portage an ailing “mountaineer” on their back, at 8000m?
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u/Xelikai_Gloom 10d ago
I can get a sharpa to carry me up Olympus Mons? Say less.
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u/daspowerhouse 10d ago
To be fair, it’s not the cost of the fuel itself that is an issue for rocket launches, just that so much of it is required, and it adds so much weight to the rocket. Fuel is less than 1% of the cost of a rocket launch, yet typically over 90% of the mass of the entire launch. If you could somehow spend fuel on the ground moving things to an optimal launch point to have to put less fuel in the rocket, it would absolutely be worth it.
The real issue is that launching from a mountain would not save you much fuel anyways. To get to orbit requires you to go very fast sideways. The initial “upward” part of a launch is just to get past the thickest part of the atmosphere, then it quickly pivots sideways for the majority of its journey.
You save more fuel by launching from a lower altitude closer to the equator, where you can take more advantage of earth’s spin to gain additional sideways velocity. So we do spend a lot of fuel to do this, for example SpaceX manufactures their rockets in Hawthorne, California, where there is a lot of aerospace manufacturing expertise, and spends a lot of fuel to ship them to Cape Canaveral, Florida, which is closer to the equator.
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u/The_sochillist 10d ago
What about launching from a mountain on the equator like Mt Chimborazo which is the farthest point from the centre of the earth so wins on all fronts
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u/dimhue 10d ago
The radial difference between equatorial sea level and the peak of Mt Chimborazo is about 0.1%. It provides very little benefit but would be a logistical nightmare to launch from.
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u/aggressive-cat 10d ago
We'd be better off building a electromagnetic launcher up the side of it and then we can put everything at the bottom and save fuel by using solar wind and nuclear to juice the em rails.
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u/awesomefutureperfect 10d ago
You'd have to engineer the payload to withstand ridiculous acceleration. No big deal if the payload is a HILE projectile but if you have living things or moving parts, that can be trickier.
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u/Chill-more1236 10d ago
SpaceX is putting a launch site in South Louisiana for the same reason. There is also an advantage of movement of parts by water, from either the Mississippi, through the Panama Canal, or down the East Coast.
Pretty sure yall know our reputation for flatness and sea levels. Solid rock and high ground is pretty much non existent, in most of the state. Our only "mountain" is something like 300ft.
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u/virgil1134 10d ago
There a lot of logisitical reasons, like transportation to the top of the mountain, fuel, bad weather, high winds, all the support strcutures beyond the launch pad, and what happens if something goes wrong and you dont have a big open ocean for falling debris.
I suspect OOP belives the increase in height is beneficial, but even if we built a launch pad on Mt. Everest, it would be neglible. The Earth has a 4,000 mile radius, and Mt. Everest is only 6 miles high, a diference of 0.15%.
The biggest reason for our launch pad sites is escape velocity. On Earth, you need to get to 25,000 MPH to get into orbit. As our flerfy friends like to point, the Earth spins at 1,000 MPH, but that is only at the equator, where all the launch pads are. As you travel to the poles, that rotational velocity goes down until it goes to 0 MPH at the poles. If you need to get to orbit, get a running start at 1,000 MPH gets you 4% of the way there, a significant savings in fuel.
At fhe end of the day, a rockets mass is 90% fuel alone, 5% is the rocket shell, and 5% is the payload. so any savings that can be achieved on fuel is signficant.
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u/mean11while 10d ago
The radius of Earth is completely irrelevant. The problem is the dense portion of the atmosphere near sea level, which prevents a rocket from rolling over and dumping its energy into horizontal motion. The atmosphere at the top of Everest is about 35% as dense as the atmosphere at sea level. Everest is also closer to the equator than Cape Canaveral.
If it was logistically possible to launch from Mt Everest, it would definitely be worthwhile. Between reduced drag, earlier gravity roll, and improved specific impulse, I think it would save about 300 m/s to LEO, plus whatever advantage the ISP provides. The rocket equation being certifiably nuts in its exponentiality, that's about a 12% reduction in fuel required at launch.
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u/Greedy_Birthday_3494 10d ago
certainly. This is a big problem, transporting fuel can lead you to lessen the efficiency of the fuel (you need too much energy to transport it compared to what it gives).
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u/October_Guy 10d ago
Just fly a rocket up to the mountain to deliver the fuel to the other rocket.
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u/Khelthuzaad 10d ago
we could use trains,electric ones
But most importantly metal and electrical components do not fare well at -20 degrees Celsius
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u/schizeckinosy 10d ago
Or o-rings
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u/Earnestappostate 10d ago
Plus, you get a better boost by launching near the equator. Height is easy, speed is what you need in a rocket.
This is why the US launches from Florida:
- Near equator (speed boost from earth's spin)
- Initially out over ocean (catastrophic failure harms only those aboard)
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u/EasyScratch1501 10d ago
That's clever. Whoever came up with that must've been some kind of rocket scientist
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u/stevenmc 10d ago
It's not exactly brain surgery, now is it?
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u/EromanticDream 10d ago
Rocket surgery
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u/blueiron0 10d ago
I've flubbed "Rocket science" as "rocket surgery" at least 10 times in my life, and reading this comment brought them all back into my brain at once.
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u/FlyingSpacefrog 10d ago
A rocket scientist is the guy who sits at a desk and makes the blueprint, or plans the trajectory and launch dates. A rocket surgeon is the guy who walked up to the thousand tons of highly combustible liquids in a fully fueled SLS to diagnose and repair a faulty valve minutes before launch.
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u/218administrate 10d ago
One of my favorite skits.
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u/iwilldeletethisacct2 10d ago
That feeling when you already know what the punchline is and you're just waiting for the delivery.
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u/MentalPlectrum 10d ago
Yes, but also there are equatorial mountains... checkmate rocket scientists!
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u/Scuttling-Claws 10d ago
Exactly. Porque no Los Dos
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u/AliasClimbs 10d ago
Exactly what I was thinking of. Ill be climbing it in a few months. Ill bring an Estes model rocket set up with me For Science.
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u/jweezy2045 10d ago
The answer here is that yes, launching from high altitude as well as launching from the equator are both benefits. Its just that the cost of moving a rocket up a mountain, or to some other country, ends up being more hassle than just doing it wherever is easiest/safest. Its just a marginal reduction. I don't have the numbers on exactly altitude, but I remember something about "Why don't we build a mile deep tunnel, and shoot space ships out of it like a gun" and the answer was something like "Sure, you can get a boost in efficiency and payload if you launch start instead of stationary start, but its like 1% more payload, and you had to build a mile deep hole that somehow shoots rockets in order to get it, so its just kinda a nonstarter of an idea."
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u/ADHDebackle 10d ago
Which also gives you more speed than sea level at the equator.
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u/thepkizzle 10d ago
The speed boost between Nepal and Florida is very minimal, but then the height difference is also very minimal because the equator is a mountain. How different? South Florida is .1% "shorter" than Everest and only about .5% rotationally faster. That's significant to be sure but it's more a product of "having both."
Neither are that important in a vacuum, the ease of getting supplies into a coastal location and launching east over the water is the real strategic reason.
If the location really truly mattered and if rotation was that important than we would be launching from Alacantra, Brazil, which is only like .06% shorter than Everest, but 13.7% faster rotationally, and 13.1% faster than Florida. The rotational speed is important, but everywhere on earth is moving but the further north or south you go the speed becomes more and more apparent with places in Florida being 40% faster than many parts of northern Canada. Nepal is actually really close to the equator.
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u/MattBe92 10d ago
That's also why the European space port is in French Guinea.
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u/donadit 10d ago
And also why Russia’s spaceport (baikonur) is in Kazakhstan, and also why Europe doesn’t launch a lot of rockets (shipping all the pieces across the ocean)
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u/Superb-Astronaut-500 10d ago
putting something on a ship cost next to nothing. Satellites are actually transported on a plane and it still doesn't cost anything. Europe doesn't launch as much as otherd because they haven't figured out how to be as cheap as others. US launchers are cheap because they are subsidized by the military and Nasa, Russia was cheap because they're peddling the same junk for the last 60 years.
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u/kirfkin 10d ago
Elevation would technically make things a bit more efficient, assuming they're near the equator. However, the speed boost significantly supersedes any effects from elevation.
It's also not feasible to get launch vehicles up a mountain of significant elevation anyway. Small gain versus very big cost, compared to building and transporting on a flatter, lower area relatively close to the equator.
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u/BuffaloInTheRye 10d ago
Due to angular momentum the speed would increase due to the elevation as well though. It wouldn’t just be a height increase.
The rest of your point still stands though
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u/sobrique 10d ago
Negligibly though. If the radius of the earth at the equator is around 6400km, another 5km is barely moving the needle.
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u/kioshi_imako 10d ago
True and technicly one of the main reasons we never used a rail boosted launch system you need 5km minimum to reduce fuel 30% and I think it was 25km to safely reach escape velocity via rail,
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u/Lithorex 10d ago
That's only true if you want to go into an equatorial orbit.
If you want to go into a polar orbit you'd need to cancel out all that sideways momentum.
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u/Roflkopt3r 10d ago
And we know the escape velocity for launches from different altitudes.
Launch at sea level: 11.186 km/s
From the top of Mt Everest (8800 m): 11.178 km/s
So even if we used the largest mountain on earth, we would only lower the escape velocity by around 0.1%. It's just not worth the effort.
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u/ObjectiveAide9552 10d ago
Florida is also further from Earth’s center than most mountains that are further away from the equator due to the earth not being a perfect sphere. Not sure if that helps the rockets, not a scientist.
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u/nerdherdsman 10d ago
The starting speed is less of a factor than the smaller required attitude change to reach an equatorial orbit iirc. The "free" delta v you get from the Earth's rotation at the equator is not that big compared to the delta v required to change orbital attitude.
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u/Believer4 10d ago
Initially out over ocean (catastrophic failure harms only those aboard)
Even that's mitigated by the launch abort system, in the case of crewed launches
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u/Redditauro 10d ago
Also, ironically, being in the Equator also means that it's closer to space, as earth is bigger in the Equator than in the rest of the planet.
The closest point to space is not Everest for that reason
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u/Secure_Courage7471 10d ago
Also, warm. Cold isn’t good for a thing that’s about to be REALLY hot from friction. See: Columbus
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10d ago edited 10d ago
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10d ago
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u/w8_wuht 10d ago
Nobody told me he was coming, I don't have tribute! 😭
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u/ChittaBhalu 10d ago
Just pull your trousers down and bend over...
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u/w8_wuht 10d ago
Dammit... Well, if it'll stop my village from getting avalanched...
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u/normal2122 10d ago
"oh no highking please dont use your mountain on me~"
why did I type that out 😞•
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u/banjoist 10d ago
Hah. That was my thought. What benefit would less than a mile give you?
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u/Cortower 10d ago
Lower air pressure. Rocket engines have to be optimized for a range of pressures for maximum performance. Small nozzles near sea level and large nozzles in vacuum. Too narrow, and the exhaust expands sideways and you lose thrust. Too wide, and you get back flow around the rim of the nozzle and lose thrust.
That first mile gets you down to 0.82atm already, so you can optimize for a much larger range of altitudes on your first stage.
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u/samanime 10d ago edited 10d ago
And, it'd save us almost nothing (even if we had a magical teleporter that let us get everything up there insantly and for free).
Space is a minimum of 50 miles from "ocean level" (and really, it's 62, but let's say 50).
Everest, the tallest mountain, is about 5 miles above sea level.
So, even if we hauled everything to the top of the tallest mountain on the planet (which would be an insane to impossible amount of effort), it's only reducing the distance by less than 10%.
EDIT: Thank you to the 500 people that have told me "the distance barely matters". That is pretty much my point. YES, I know speed, and thus latitude are more important. My point is even if you ONLY consider the height, the thing the original question focused on, it STILL doesn't matter. When you factor in all the factors, it really, really doesn't matter.
I focused on the focus of the post in my response, not all of astronautical engineering.
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u/NerdyDjinn 10d ago
Unless you are doing sub-orbital flights, the height doesn't matter all that much. If you are looking for orbit (most space launches), speed is way more important than how high you start. Launching at the equator gives the highest starting speed, a far more significant savings in fuel. Now, there are equatorial mountains in the world, but as you say, you still have to expend the resources to move all the rocket parts and launch facilities up the mountain. It's easier to just build your rocket slightly bigger and use slightly more fuel to launch from a much more accessible and convenient location.
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u/Opus_723 10d ago
Launching in thinner air actually saves quite a bit of fuel though, a lot of it is just spent fighting drag in the lower atmosphere.
The real reason we don't do this is just that there are like a dozen other more important things that make a good launch site and it's not practical to find a place that checks all the boxes.
You need to be close to the equator, directly west of a large body of water, governments want to launch in their own territory, etc, etc.
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u/FederalWedding4204 10d ago
Except the lowest part of that 50 miles is the densest atmosphere. So lessening the distance by 10 percent is only some of it. The reduction in atmospheric drag is an entirely different beast
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u/Etherbeard 10d ago
Why don't we just make a rocket that's five miles tall? Best of both worlds.
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u/M0RT1f3X 10d ago
And the weather is more extreme on mountains
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u/reverandglass 10d ago
Finally! Here's me scrolling through hundreds of comments and no-one's mentioned the weather!
A normal winter frost doomed Challenger, I can't imagine trying to combat the winds and temperatures at those heights. Not to mention the snow.→ More replies (3)•
u/dimonium_anonimo 10d ago
It also costs a lot of money to haul all the rocket parts and fuel up to the height of the mountain during a normal launch.
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u/NavyBabySeal 10d ago
Well, im sure the rocket scientists have run the numbers and realised that rocket + fuel for 4-6 extra km< rocket+ fuel PLUS rocket launching platform for many many extra horizontal km's and those vertical km's you gain by climbing the mountain.
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u/MINATO8622 10d ago
Also, the height boost is insignificant.
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u/IrritableGourmet 10d ago
Shrunk down to the size of a bowling ball, the Earth would be much smoother than a bowling ball. Mountains are basically a rounding error in terms of spaceflight.
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u/Icy_Concern_9804 10d ago
tl;dr: for a rocket it is waaaay more important to go fast than to go high. and earth rotates very slowly, so going higher doesn't make you much faster.
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u/Maephia 10d ago
So would it be theoretically easier to launch rockets at the equator since that's where the spin is the fastest?
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u/Triqueon 10d ago
Yes, which is why the American Spaceports are in southern states, and the ESA launches from French Guiana.
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u/descisionsdecisions 10d ago
I would assume they are flying polar orbits where the extra speed from the equator is detrimental.
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u/_okbrb 10d ago
Yes, it’s this
The dV bonus they lose at launch is gained back in savings from the less extreme plane change maneuver
Polar orbits are commonly used for imaging satellites
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u/Purple_Clockmaker 10d ago
I'm imagining satellites and I'm on the bus right now. Going to polar orbit is a waste of time.
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u/QueasyNart 10d ago
I can understand how putting a bus into polar orbit would be a waste of time, but why the hell did you do it at all?
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u/Thea-the-Phoenix 10d ago
It was Ms. Frizzle's bus. She just wanted to do something cool.
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u/Lithorex 10d ago
The dV bonus they lose at launch is gained back in savings from the less extreme plane change maneuver
In a polar orbit this isn't even free dV. It's unwanted sideways momentum.
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u/IBreakCellPhones 10d ago
There's also not much land south of the Kodiak Spaceport other than Hawaii and Antarctica to have rocket bits fall on. That's also why most of the US polar launches are from Vandenberg SFB. Polar launches from Cape Canaveral are doable but difficult and restricted. You have to thread needles between islands. Starbase Texas has too much land north and south of it. Starbase Louisiana might be able to do it, but Mexico won't be too happy about it.
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u/Icy-Ad29 10d ago edited 10d ago
Because having it quickly wind up over water rather than populated land is a common requirement, and the convenient places you can do this with enough fairly-flat space for a pad, near the equator, are rapidly running out...
So you make a smaller pad for lower orbits that require less speed, farther north/south.
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u/PewPewsAlote 10d ago
Not all satellites desire an Equatorial orbit (An orbit that follows the equator). There are many other orbital inclinations that may be desired, to reach them it would be more efficient to launch from a more advantageous location on earth. Its more fuel efficient to launch from a location that is slower but closer along your desired orbit rather than to launch from the equator and then perform an extremely expensive correction burn.
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u/Super_Range45 10d ago
Batman already explained that the reason they don't launch them from mountains is Akai Riko is not a rocket scientist.
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u/Satyr121 10d ago
So a mountain near the equator would be best right? Because the further away from the center you are the faster you rotate?
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u/HenMeeNooMai 10d ago
Earth surface is relatively flat as fuck. It would not make that much of a difference even if we cut out the cost of transport and construction.
Everest is 8.8km compared to Earth's atmosphere of 10000km
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u/cyril_zeta 10d ago
Low Earth orbit is around 400km up (90min orbital period or so). The edge of space is considered to be around 100km up. The atmosphere is pretty thin. If you are sending up a geostationary satellite though, you are comparing, say, Everest (9km) to the orbital distance of 70 000km, that's indeed nothing. The difference in velocity you need to get is very small.
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u/Tango8036 10d ago edited 10d ago
Let me ask you two and a half questions:
- Would it be a good idea to launch a rocket during a windstorm?
- Which kind of biome would you say has the most predictably calm weather patterns? Is it a mountain?
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u/CrashNowhereDrive 10d ago
Not just because of that. It's because there's a coastline there - rockets want to launch over water - and because it's the only reasonable way to get to lower inclination orbits. Low inclination orbits are better to go to things like geostationary , to the moon, to the plane of the ecliptic in the solar system.
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u/MKBRD 10d ago
Don't they already do that?
Or near to the equator, at least.
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u/Enaciann 10d ago
They do!! At least SpaceX and the ESA does :) (both are near Cap Carnaveral !)
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u/KebabGud 10d ago
ESA launches from French Guiana which has the launce site that sits closest to the equator.
SpaceX launch from Cape canaveral, Vandenberg and Brownsville, with the last one beeing the southernmost launchsite in the US
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u/British_Rover 10d ago
Yes. That is why the US launches primarily from Florida and SpaceX launches down near Brownsville Texas.
Belize is also a spaceport for France and the ESA.
Closer to the equator the better.
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u/euph_22 10d ago
"Belize is also a spaceport for France and the ESA"
I believe you're thinking of the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre
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u/meadbert 10d ago edited 10d ago
Yes. Countries already do that. It is one reason the US launches from Florida, Texas and Southern California, and Russia launches from Kazakhstan.
This actually makes Russia's early lead in the space race all the more impressive.
Starting at a higher altitude also helps, but you must transport the rocket to that altitude or assemble it there and both are difficult. Launching from the coast lets you use barges to transport rocket parts. If you don't have access to waterway, then a railroad is your next best bet and running railroad tracks to the tops of mountains is not ideal.
Finally, some rocket launches fail. If you start at the coast you can launch over an ocean so if things go wrong the rocket crashes into the Ocean rather than hitting a populated area.
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u/Mnementh85 10d ago
also rocket launch are heavily dependant on weather.
and there is hardly worst places than mountain to get stable weather
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u/ObsidianDart 10d ago
Can't imagine that top of mountain is actually better logistically. You save some rocket fuel since you have less air drag to go through, but I can't imagine those cost savinga make it worth all the troubles and costs you'll have setting up and launching from there.
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u/Halikarnassus1 10d ago
They do that but it's not because it's where the spin is fastest it's because the closer you get to equator the less you need to burn after getting to orbit to turn it equatorial
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u/pat34us 10d ago
Not to mention that where they have the launch pads currently the weather is far more consistent. Image waiting for the weather to be just right on the top of a fricken mountain
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u/theobashau 10d ago
Yeah, I was just immediately reminded that part of the reason for the Challenger crash was how cold it was that day
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u/ResidentBackground35 10d ago
Isn't there a atmospheric thickness component as well? Or am I crossing wires?
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u/Opus_723 10d ago
Yes, launching from mountains would actually be nice because of the thinner air. The real reason is just that there are more important things that matter in choosing a launch site and everything is a compromise.
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u/H_Industries 10d ago edited 10d ago
"Slowly" is relative, at the equator the earths surface is rotating at about 1000 mph. LEO orbital velocity is about 17,500 mph, so you're about 6% of the way there compared to if you were launching at the poles.
edit: I'm not sure if 17,500 is absolute or relative to the earths surface, but the point remains that you get about 1000 mph of free velocity from the earth spinning at the equator vs the poles. if its relative, then its a 5.4% gain vs the 5.7% so still significant
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u/UnlikelyIntrepid 10d ago
Launching near the equator provides a speed boost due to rotation that outweighs the benefits of starting higher up. It also doesn’t have the logistics nightmare of getting everything to the top of a mountain before launch.
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u/loadnurmom 10d ago
This is the answer. Should be higher up.
To add on, many rocket pads are in coastal areas to avoid falling debris hitting populated areas in the event of a mishap.
Certainly not all, Roscosmos launches over land, but the population density is a lot lower (and....well...Russia)
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u/G-St-Wii 10d ago
Higher up here? Where we are meant to be explaining a joke?
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u/DungeonsAndDradis 10d ago
Why don't they comment closer to the middle of the post so that there's a speed boost?
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u/hedrone 10d ago
Best described in https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ .
"The reason it's hard to get to orbit isn't that space is high up.
It's hard to get to orbit because you have to go so fast."
Putting rockets on mountains only helps with the "up" part, which is not the biggest part of the problem.
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u/jmlinden7 10d ago
It helps with the speed part too. Less air resistance and very slightly less effective gravity.
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u/AutonomousOrganism 10d ago
Eh. Gravity reduction on a mountain is like 0.2 percent. Air resistance matters a bit more. But all of those are drowned by the energy needed to reach orbital velocity.
Much more interesting would be an electromagnetic launcher up a mountain, getting the rocket to 1 km/s or so. Although I am not sure the logistics are worth it. You could just use more fuel instead (what is done irl)). Fuel is cheap.
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u/PerniciousSnitOG 10d ago
It's weird, but things seem to be converging. I was reading something this morning talking about the Starship problem of getting enough fuel in the ship once it's in orbit to get to Mars. It suggested that there would be lots of Starships carrying nothing but fuel into orbit, but it seems like a perfect job for the spin launch people! They should be able to achieve an impressive "launch" cadence that's needed for really doing things in space.
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u/Downtown-Act-590 10d ago edited 10d ago
That is indeed true, but nowadays a ton of satellites are on polar sun synchronous orbits and there the speed boost doesn't really exist. That is why you have space ports in places like Saxavord or Esrange, which are extremely northern. So it is definitely not the main reason.
Moreover, the benefits for starting higher up are visible. Primarily, because you leave vast majority of atmosphere below you and with it aerodynamic forces and drag. That is one of the reasons why you have several air launched vehicles like the Pegasus.
That said, the logistics are indeed quite extreme at this point. It does not mean that it isn't possible option in the future though.
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10d ago
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u/enfersijesais 10d ago
Can you reinvent me a recipe for blueberry muffins?
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u/Uzi_Doormat 10d ago
Classic Blueberry Muffins
Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 20–25 minutes Yields: 12 muffins
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup neutral oil (like canola or vegetable)
1 large egg
1/2 cup whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
Instructions
Preheat and prep: Preheat your oven to 400°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or lightly grease it with non-stick cooking spray.
Mix dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until well combined.
Mix wet ingredients: In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the oil, egg, milk, and vanilla extract.
Combine: Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Use a spatula to gently fold the mixture together just until the flour disappears. Be careful not to overmix; a few lumps are perfectly fine and keep the muffins tender.
Fold in blueberries: Gently fold the blueberries into the batter, taking care not to smash them.
Fill the tin: Scoop the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups. They should be about 3/4 full.
Bake: Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Cool: Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.→ More replies (3)•
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u/Dion42o 10d ago
how do you know its a bot?
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u/enfersijesais 10d ago
Well… the bio asking you to click the link to chat 🍆💦😘, the wording of the comment. Makes no real sense. And the account is already banned.
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u/poppycock_scrutiny 10d ago
Meg's twin here, rockets benefit from being closer to equator cuz earth has a bit more rotational energy that catapults said rocket with higher force, being on top of a few kilometres tall mountain won't matter much in the hundreds or thousands of kilometer of space travel, and it would be next to impossible to transport huge rockets to the summit of a mountain.
See it wasn't that hard to answer a genuine question but the oop's commenter chose to be a dick.
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u/Downtown-Act-590 10d ago edited 10d ago
It wasn't that hard to answer, but this answer is not really correct either.
It is nowadays extremely common to see satellites on sun synchronous polar orbits and the market for very high inclination launches is booming. These types of launches don't benefit from the equatorial speed up in any significant way and as such you see new spaceports opened up in places like Scotland, Sweden and Norway.
Moreover, the few kilometres definitely matter as on the summit of a large mountain. Vast majority of atmosphere is below you. The aerodynamic drag and forces are real. Typically, you can see ca. 30 to 40 percent of the first stage propellant spent only on the first 10 km of the climb. It is also the part of the flight with the highest loads, which determine the required strength of the launch vehicle. Not to mention significantly lower range of surrounding air pressure for which you have to optimise the nozzle. There are massive benefits to launching higher and that is one of the reasons for several actual air launch projects.
That said, it is indeed logistically difficult, so we don't do it now. But far from realm of impossible or benefit-less and very much in realm of currently somewhat impractical.
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u/Plaeblius 10d ago
That's all true but the atmosphere isn't the reason so much fuel is burned early in ascent. The Saturn V only suffered about 40 m/s delta-v loss due to drag, which is a fraction of a percent of the necessary delta-v just to reach LEO. The thrust to weight ratio is just extremely low during initial launch so much of the fuel is just burned defeating gravity, and launching from a mountain won't noticeably change that (you're talking in the ballpark of a 0.5% decrease in g maximum).
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u/Vincent_Gitarrist 10d ago
I understand why it's best to launch from the equator, but what does the equator have to do with mountains?
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u/G-St-Wii 10d ago
The joke?
It's just someone being unhelpful.
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u/Augustby 10d ago
Yeah I hate that kind of reply. The person asking the question acknowledged that they’re ignorant about this topic, and the reply was basically just: “yeah you are”.
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u/Dead_Ass_Head_Ass 10d ago
Ironically those answering the question in that manner don't know the answer either but are too insecure to ask the question themselves.
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u/Otherwise_Tomato5552 10d ago
I dislike when people answer this way. It’s a genuine, humble question.
No need to be mean
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u/PerniciousSnitOG 10d ago
The really stupid thing is that honest, humble questions are the ones that drive useful discoveries. Thirty years in technology taught me that the right question, at the right time, is what makes the world go round.
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u/PoopsMcScoots 10d ago
The guy is being a dick for no reason.
And actually there ARE people suggesting to launch missiles from mountains.
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u/Much-Jackfruit2599 10d ago
for war, yes
for space flights: they checked and discarded the idea. the gains that exit would be gobbled up by the logistical problems
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u/ExpertEar699 10d ago
Equator is closest to space because Earth is not a perfect sphere instead it's bulged at the equator, same reason that mout Chimborazo in equator is closer to space than mount Everest in Nepal
Edit: I forgot that there isn't enough oxygen too for combustion
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u/raaneholmg 10d ago
> Edit: I forgot that there isn't enough oxygen too for combustion
Rocket Science is a BYOO party.
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u/ollervo100 10d ago
I'm not sure if you are joking, but rockets carry their oxygen. Otherwise they wouldn't work in a vacuum.
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u/Abacada_Poln_Kha_Kha 10d ago
Nope, equator is best because earths rotation is faster there.
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u/Alternative-Coach619 10d ago
Also like, even if it was free to haul the rocket parts up the mountain, the mountain at MOST is going to get you like, 2-3% closer to space which is very minimal and better to just launch it close to the equator like that already do
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u/jessieS1212 10d ago
I haven't studied rocket science but i think is about going fast.
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u/4N610RD 10d ago
Congratulation. You basically uncovered half the problem with rocket science.
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u/CChargeDD 10d ago
Because its easyer to reach orbital velocity with a rocket than a mountain.
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u/The3mbered0ne 10d ago edited 10d ago
The deltav (force needed to leave the atmosphere) #1 wouldn't meaningfully reduce it would actually increase vs launching at the equator because of the earths spin, but #2 would cost much more to ship and assemble, on top of electrical and fuel issues due to the cold it's just a terrible idea
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u/Beanz_detected 10d ago
Moving anything up a mountain gets real expensive real fast because you're working against gravity the entire way. Yeah, theoretically it's more efficient, but the cost is just too much.
Roads and rail might not exist, or are just impossible to route up to the summit, leaving you with only aircraft, which still need an assload of expensive facilities to support it, and can't carry nearly as much weight.
NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft can load 108,999kg, the shuttle itself weighing 78,000kg
The Falcon 9, probably the best analogue in modern day, weighs only 29,500 in comparison, not exactly something that can't be flown in, but allows us to do some calculations.
Assuming you're not planning on being able to make another attempt at landing (on a fucking mountain) you'd be carrying ~30,000lbs which we're converting to 13,608kg that's at minimum weight of 43,108kg assuming they're not carrying any other equipment, fuel, or otherwise.
Now if we did some calculations that I'm not good enough at researching to find, we'd find that jesus christ that's a big runway to be putting ON A MOUNTAIN
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u/doodullbop 10d ago
Not even considering the extra work needed to build launchpads on the top of mountains, it's like someone suggesting to park at the end of your driveway to save fuel on your daily commute. Rockets reach altitudes in the hundreds to thousands of km. Reducing that by a 3 or 4km is immaterial.
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