Why don't we launch rockets from very tall mountains where the atmosphere is thinner?
>>7669216
Moving the equipment and rocket to the top of a mountain is harder than just shooting the rocket to that height.
>>7669216
Because atmosphere isn't the biggest issue, not by a long shot. Long story short, launching at the equator like the yuros is the best you can do as far as location is concerned.
>>7669225
What about tall mountains near the equator?
>>7669227
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimborazo
>Chimborazo is not the highest mountain by elevation above sea level, but its location along the equatorial bulge makes its summit the farthest point on the Earth's surface from the Earth's center.
>>7669227
The benefits of a thinner atmosphere are infinitesimal when you have to free a 270 ton machine from Earth's gravity.
>that video
my boner is assuming direct control
>>7669245
But you need like 9.5k dV to get to Earth's Orbit, but your speed at that point is "only" like 7.5k m/s
The rest is wasted in the atmosphere, that's like a 20% loss.
Also rockets always launch east so they have the Earth's rotation added to their speed automagically, I don't know how fast the Earth rotates though but that's another amount of dV lost to the atmosphere if the above numbers are correct (i'm not sure I remember them right)
>>7669258
Launching from a mountain is not the same as launching from orbit, retard. The energy saved is negligible.
>>7669216
The thinkness of the atmosphere is not in essence a problem. The thrust genrated by the ejected gases is verable based on the deserty of the atmosphere. A tropical site is more important. Coser to the equiter the beter.
>>7669216
Why don't we just use a giant slingshot/catapult cause that'd be cheaper.
kek
>>7669258
>don't know how fast the Earth rotates
you really do not know the length of day and the radius of the planet you live on?
Why dont we just put hte rocket on a balloon and let the earth spin under it to get the velocity?
>>7669328
>The thrust genrated by the ejected gases is verable based on the deserty of the atmosphere.
I did not understand that sentence
Also aren't rocket engines closed cycle? That's their difference from jet engines, they have their own oxygen so they work the same in atmosphere or in vacuum
>>7669363
in your equation for the laval nozzle there is a Ma which is dependent on the speed of sound which is dependent on the density of the fluid which decreases as you go higher in the atmosphere.
thats why you have multi stage rockets
>>7669362
NASA is going to call you tomorrow about a job.
>>7669244
The problem might be that you launch over the Amazon. It's sparsely populated so that itself isn't bad but some environmentalists might not like the idea of rockets crashing there.
>>7669472
If we're going to Mars we better get used to those nuclear rocket engines too
>>7669216
For the same reason airports aren't just on mountains
>>7669258
Rockets do not always launch east.
>>7669756
dis nigga never been to denver international
>>7669216
The atmosphere would be to dense and we wouldnt get enough thrust to break through it
>>7669756
This would work though, and it'd be a nice gondola ride
.... actually nvm the storms would fuq sht up
what about on days with low atmospheric pressure? I know NASA likes to launch on sunny days, but if there's less atmosphere for the rockets to cut through wouldn't that save on fuel?
>>7669794
You mean not dense enough?
>>7669328
All you guys saying it's pointless for orbital launches are right but it would help for sub orbital
>>7669216
The real question is:
Why don't we launch rockets from launchloops 50 km in the sky?
http://www.launchloop.com/LaunchLoop?action=print
>>7669477
which nuclear rocket engines?
>>7669245
Thinner atmosphere matters a lot actually
Source: Kerbal Space Program
I asked this of a NASA scientist once because, for many reasons, it would be better to launch from a high altitude - much less fuel, less moisture and therefore less insulation on fuel tanks, etc.
The answer was simple - all launches are near the ocean because they ship the giant rockets to the launch pad. They literally couldn't get the rockets to a high mountaintop.
There is also the fear of rocket parts raining down on inhabited areas, but that is less of a problem now.
Oh, the earth rotates at around 1,000 mph at the equator.
>>7670531
What if you build a railway to the mountaintop? The Andes or the mountains on Papua aren't that far from the sea.
Kilimanjaro might also work.
>>7669794
The atmosphere would be thinner. Air-breathing engines couldn't function as well, but closed systems would go unaffected as they rely on Newton's third law (they thrust by jettisoning matter, not by "pushing" against air).
>>7669978
...and they should launch at night, because there will be fewer down-traveling photons reflecting off the rocket, slowing it down?
It's not that atmospheric drag isn't significant, anon, it's that the difference between atmospheric drag on days with low atmospheric pressure and atmospheric drag on days with normal or high atmospheric pressure is totally insignificant.
>>7669472
I remember Ariane 4 (Flight 36) which exploded early in the flight and really polluted the forest, there was no published picture (even today iirc) so i can't really show you but it really fucked up the forest, and nobody really spoke about that, but this was back in the 90's, so yeah, i don't know what would people say today. (the point about transporting the equipment uphill is probably the real deal-breaker)
One guy forgot a rag into the pipe of the water circuit of one of the first stage engine, so the rocket tried to compensate but it ended badly, nearly exploding on the pad.
http://www.ina.fr/video/CAB06056640/ja2-20h-emission-du-23-fevrier-1990-video.html
If you're interested, it starts at 00:50, you see the rocket burning the paint on the launch tower, it was sooo close.
>>7669216
Why are physicists so shit at math?
I had a highschool Physics teacher, and a Physics lecturer at college for some Physics course not related to my major, and both did some pretty basic math mistakes that ruined the whole equation they were trying to solve.
E.g.
[eqn] \frac{1}{2500} + \frac{1}{50} + \frac{1}{100} = \frac{1}{2500 + 50 + 100}[/eqn]
The one at highschool was trying for like 15 minutes to find the mistake in his equation like a retard
>>7671080
shit wrong thread
>le "why has nobody ever thought of my totally simple idea that I have put a whooping 5 minutes of thought into" meme man :^)
you fucking mongoloid
you really think thousands of engineers and scientists have never thought about something as mind boggingly simple as "JUST LAUNCH IT FROM HIGHER UP LOL"?
what is it with you fucking high school dropouts and your delusions of grandeur making you think that you're somehow smarter in [field X] than someone who has worked in [field X] for most of his life
kill yourself
>>7671138
What am I seeing. This is strangely unnerving.
Saved.
>>7671080
Not everyone can be as good in math as me, you faggot.
>>7671138
The most complex problems often have the simplest solutions.
The Saturn V second stage only became possible when some nerd said "dude why do we have two fuel tanks with their own walls when we could just have only one wall separating the two. lmao 2walls"
>>7671156
>The Saturn V second stage only became possible when some nerd said "dude why do we have two fuel tanks with their own walls when we could just have only one wall separating the two. lmao 2walls"
this isn't about how complex the solution to a problem may or may not be
it's about the ever-repeating threads of retards vomiting their thoughts out about a topic they have no idea of and acting like they've just revolutionized a whole field just by thinking really hard about it for 5 minutes during lunch
if your thread starts "why has nobody ever thought of X", chances are pretty damn fucking high that somebody, somewhere has thought about it already
Why doesn't NASA launch from Hawaii or the Northern Mariana islands?
>>7671192
I imagine it's because the continental U.S. is just more convenient and more secure, especially in the 40s when they first started testing rockets there. And I'm sure there were political reasons as well (a Florida senator owed a favor, etc)
>>7671148
darmstadt
>>7669221
This pretty much. Vibration from roads can and will damage sensitive equipment
>>7671144
Felix Colgrave.
>>7671080
Both of those people have probably solved harder physics equations then you even know about. You're just stupid and can't accept that sometimes people make dumb mistakes. And when writing on a board all of your work is far apart so it's hard to find where you made the mistake exactly.
>>7671381
I think he means why aren't the laboratories up there too.
Humans live up to 10 years longer at higher altitudes in any case. There's no reason for us to live at sea level in this day and age.
>>7671138
>delusions of grandeur
I see this insult thrown around in every /sci/ idea thread ever. "keep the status quo, never try to innovate" is the /sci/ dogma.
>>7671186
> "why has nobody ever thought of X", chances are pretty damn fucking high that somebody, somewhere has thought about it already
For starters the chances are high but not certain, secondly the person who thought of it may not have had the time or money to go through with it and thirdly and most importantly It could have been considered but rejected due to a mistaken belief. Eg the jet engine. The original design incorporated an axial compressor but that was dismissed as never being able to deliver enough compression because of turbulence so it was canned in favor of the less elegant centrifugal compressor. One day someone had the bright spark to make the blades in the axial compressor have an airfoil profile and this made it work. Now virtually all jet engines use axial compressors. Also the hovercraft, it was designed and tested by brainboxes, they couldn't work out how to get it to work good in choppy seas despite all the time and money thrown at it, one guy gave the simple solution of adding a rubber skirt to enable the air column to lift it above the waves and the rest is history.
Your mindset is extremely negative, defeatist and unhelpful. it doesn't hurt to try. If all your ideas got trashed don't project your anger onto OP.
>>7671059
>there was no published picture (even today iirc) so i can't really show you but it really fucked up the forest
So it killed a tree and a dozen insects and you just try to make a mountain out of a molehill
>>7672603
>the /sci/ dogma.
Is asking stupid meme questions without trying to google or understand anything.
>>7669216
OP, read The Man Who Sold The Moon by Heinlein. Written in 1949 and published in 1951. It literally talks about this stuff
>>7672603
"ur just not open minded enough": the post
>Your mindset is extremely negative, defeatist and unhelpful. it doesn't hurt to try
>doesn't hurt to try
>asking a stupid one line question on sci without even bothering to ask google first
>TRYING
quick reality check for you: nobody gives a single shit about your idea
lots of people have ideas
every single day
the hard thing about coming up with an idea is estimating wether it is actually as smart and innovative as you think it is or not
spouting WHY HAS NOBODY EVER DONE X LOL LOOK AT ME IM SO SMART is the exact opposite of that
because if he'd truly be that interested in the topic, he would google and do some rough research about why we launch rockets from where we are launching them BEFORE posting his bullshit thread onto sci
stop pretending you're interested in a topic if your "new, crazy, innovative" idea can be described AND dismissed in a single. fucking. sentence.
it's not that hard of a concept to grasp to verify "ideas" before vocalizing them
or is it?
I mean here you are, rambling like the EMdrive Defense Force, "you just have to try, not everything is written in stone!!" without actually getting my point
this isn't about inherent negativity and aversion to all things new, even if you wish it was
it's about people not using their fucking common sense
>>7672643
let it crash into your backyard and see if thats all it does.
>>7672695
OP hasn't implied any of that. You're simply projecting it onto OP. OP is simply asking the question.
>>7672695
and for the 2nd time now
stop giving examples of simple solutions to complex problems like they are relevant to my post
the guy who thought about using airfoil profiles within the compressor probably did a quick mindstorm as to WHY it could actually work
or do you think the conversation with is supervisor went like this?
"hey boss, why don't we just put airfoil profiles into the compressor"
"why"
"dunno, lol"
proving your idea works is the logical step that comes right after having the actual idea
you can't just skip this and expect people not to tear your idea apart the minute you vocalize it
>>7672709
>OP hasn't implied any of that
>OP is simply asking the question
"why dont we" IS the implication
if his question was truly just a question out of legitimate interest he would've written in a neutral way, not like an average, mundane shitposter
these kind of threads, written in that exact sentence structure, aren't new
>>7672695
Wow how does one get this bitter? I know because their own career went up in flames so they are now projecting like a motherfucker on others. Lol just because your ideas were shit doesn't mean everyone else's will be. Stay bitter and defeatist, me and OP will continue to innovate and become rich while you cry in your basement.
>>7672695
>lots of people have ideas every single day
So talk about them. Human communication is conducive to improving ideas.
>>7669221
This
>>7672695
>/sci/ not realizing he's right about everything
>/sci/ can't get over their special snowflake syndrome
>/sci/ is essentially full of undergrads who get shitty grades but tell themselves it's because they "underachieve"
The mountain would need to be right on the equator
>>7673703
He is the one with special snowflake syndrome. He is basically saying that anything he couldn't have come up with himself is trash. I don't know what he hopes to achieve by banning free speech in science. Enough ideas spouted no matter how crazy one may stick. Only hurting science by suppressing the thoughts of the layman because of your own arrogance.
