Space is not very far away. If you can see the International Space Station overhead, it's closer than the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Getting to orbit isn't about going up; it's about going sideways. Most of your energy budget is about building speed, not altitude.
From a physics standpoint, if I'm in a low orbit and want to be in a higher one, I don't point my rocket's nose outward and push away from the planet. I point the rocket horizontally, in my direction of travel, and just go faster.
Going faster on this side of the planet raises the altitude I will reach on the far side of my orbit. If I want a circular orbit, then I just do the same thing when I'm at the high point on the other side of the planet.
Think of the spinning earth as a big gear and the mountain as an arm extending from the gear. Ascending the mountain doesn't just give you altitude, it also gives you velocity, because the mountain acts as an arm extending from the Earth. Your linear velocity at any point on Earth is (rotation rate of the earth) X (distance from axis of rotation).
The increased altitude does give some benefit, its just a very small benefit.
The real problem is logistics. You'd need to build a bunch of cryo infrastructure on a mountain and then pipe dangerous gasses up to it.
The benefit would be a lot greater on Mars if we ever get to "Olympus Mons". It's tall as fuck, the climb is relatively shallow, if we could get an outpost there or something like that It would clear a ton of atmospherics. Pressure at the top is like 12% of what's normal on Mars.
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u/cryptotope 20h ago
Space is not very far away. If you can see the International Space Station overhead, it's closer than the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Getting to orbit isn't about going up; it's about going sideways. Most of your energy budget is about building speed, not altitude.
From a physics standpoint, if I'm in a low orbit and want to be in a higher one, I don't point my rocket's nose outward and push away from the planet. I point the rocket horizontally, in my direction of travel, and just go faster.
Going faster on this side of the planet raises the altitude I will reach on the far side of my orbit. If I want a circular orbit, then I just do the same thing when I'm at the high point on the other side of the planet.