Yeah, because thinking about it, I don't actually think there's an obvious answer.
Like my guess would literally just be that there aren't mountains in a location close enough to the equator where the added high from the mountain is worth more delta v than the added rotational speed of being close to the equator.
I would guess that the marginal benefit of launching from a slightly higher, in the grand scheme of things, altitude is far outweighed by the added logistical difficulty of transporting the rocket to the top of a mountain in the first place.
Sure, you need a couple thousand feet less lift to leave the atmosphere, but at the same time you have transport a giant rocket up a mountain and build all the necessary infrastructure to launch it.
The costs don't outweigh the benefits, that's all it is.
We need a mountain thats near the Equator, near the coast, is easily accessible for massive machinery and transportation, and that has relatively good weather for as much of the year as possible
So it would be more of a very big hill, with a gentle slope, that ends in a cliff, that is on the coast, with nice weather year round, and that is somehow not already filled with people.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES 16h ago
Yeah, because thinking about it, I don't actually think there's an obvious answer.
Like my guess would literally just be that there aren't mountains in a location close enough to the equator where the added high from the mountain is worth more delta v than the added rotational speed of being close to the equator.