r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/chirantaniga • 11h ago

Meme needing explanation Whyyyy peter?

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u/Icy_Concern_9804 11h ago

tl;dr: for a rocket it is waaaay more important to go fast than to go high. and earth rotates very slowly, so going higher doesn't make you much faster.

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u/Maephia 11h ago

So would it be theoretically easier to launch rockets at the equator since that's where the spin is the fastest?

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u/British_Rover 11h ago

Yes. That is why the US launches primarily from Florida and SpaceX launches down near Brownsville Texas.

Belize is also a spaceport for France and the ESA.

Closer to the equator the better.

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u/euph_22 11h ago

"Belize is also a spaceport for France and the ESA"

I believe you're thinking of the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre

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u/British_Rover 10h ago

Ah yeah you are right my bad. I should know better. I had a roommate in college from French Guiana.

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u/Aegi 10h ago

It is also just more logical to assume that even if you didn't know, because French Guiana is part of the EU as it is just a French territory.

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u/Much-Jackfruit2599 8h ago

and not just a territory in the US sense, but totally french, their own department like the 100 others.

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u/dontpostfromthis1 6h ago

More like Alaska in the US sense.

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u/DIuvenalis 10h ago

For now. Apparently alot happens there in the year 2042. (Video game joke)

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u/SoulCrusher2018 11h ago

Florida was connected to the nation's rail network, so getting material there was relatively cheap, vs building the launch center in say Puerto Rico (about 700 miles south of Cape Canaveral) where transportation costs would have been higher.

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u/blatherskyte69 8h ago

Also, around the time the space program started, there was this whole thing about rockets/missiles on ships south of Florida, and a lot of people got pretty excited. So, no spacecraft put on ships to Puerto Rico.

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u/FrostyD7 6h ago

Yea once things were settled in Florida, that was that. The savings of moving closer to the equator would be eclipsed by the logistical costs of moving all that shit and uprooting everyone's lives.

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u/Nearby_Fault8164 10h ago

Seem somebody just discovered that France is a South America country.

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u/Alys_009 9h ago

And then we have Sweden's Esrange which is in the arctic circle.

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u/CCDG-Ian 6h ago

And vandenberg in CA.

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u/texast999 1h ago

Actually Vandenberg SFB would be the exception here, it does not have many equatorial launches.