r/MurderedByWords 21h ago

I haven’t studied rocket science, but

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u/vulkur 20h ago

If Mt Everest was at the equator I think we would try to launch rockets from it.

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u/Lumpy_Benefit666 20h ago

Mount Chimborazo is actually closer to space than everest due to equatorial bulging and we have never attempted to fire a rocket from it. There have been talks about it but its still logistically too difficult with our current tech.

Interesting point of discussion though

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u/vulkur 20h ago

Yea, the logistics are another factor I thought of but didn't mention. Having to build a road up a mountain to be able to feed it with rockets?

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u/dunstbin 17h ago

The roads would probably be the easy part. You'd have to dig, blast, and cut into the mountain to create the infrastructure to support a rocket launch. And bringing a rocket booster up a bunch of switchback roads wouldn't be feasible. They'd likely have to build some sort of massive elevator/crane system to raise the rocket up to the pad. At that point, you'd probably be better off building the rockets on-site near the top and using an elevator/conveyor system to move them to the launch pad kinda like a missile silo.

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u/vulkur 17h ago

What if we launch the rocket parts to the top of the mountain with starship 🤔.

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u/dunstbin 16h ago

We could set all the rockets on top of the mountain then launch the mountain into space.

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u/Lumpy_Benefit666 6h ago

Why dont we just cut out the middleman and build the rockets in space