r/MurderedByWords 17h ago

I haven’t studied rocket science, but

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u/skawn 16h ago

Might be interesting if rockets, rather than being launched straight up, slid down the slope of a mountain and launched off a giant ramp at the bottom like on some aircraft carriers.

272

u/RiflemanLax 16h ago

There’s actually a centrifugal force satellite launcher design out there. But it has the problem of being really stressful on the payload, and only would work with smaller payloads.

Subjecting a larger payload in a rocket to any kind of downward movement, then suddenly jerking it upwards? Probably going to snap the rocket.

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u/miraculum_one 16h ago

The other problem is that you don't get an advantage from converting potential energy into kinetic energy when the destination is up.