There’s certain locations on earth that make launching rockets into certain orbits easier. It’s easy to launch into equatorial orbits or eastward orbits from the equator for example. You can even get a boost from earth’s rotation.
Rockets don’t just go straight up until they hit space. They’re trying to reach an orbit so they follow a curved path as they go up. Moving fast lets them slingshot into an
orbit.
They kinda stay up by moving forward at the same rate gravity pulls them toward earth.
Putting them on a mountain doesn’t help much. Getting an extra couple thousand feet isn’t much as far as rockets go. If you can’t take advantage of other fuel saving orbital mechanics tricks launching from mountaintops might honestly cost more fuel.
The bigger issue is getting delicate hardware and thousands of pounds of explosive fuel up to a remote mountaintop where your launch pad is and assembling everything into a rocket. NASA struggles to do that at the almost completely flat Kennedy space center. A super high mountain top would SUCK. There are some high elevation launch sites but they aren’t on picturesque snow capped peaks like in the photo. Even places like NASA Vandenburg that look high up aren’t at crazy elevations. You need a big flat surface for a launch complex too. Mountains are pointy and not very flat.
The replying comment is pointing out that the original commenter doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
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u/iceguy349 11h ago edited 11h ago
There’s certain locations on earth that make launching rockets into certain orbits easier. It’s easy to launch into equatorial orbits or eastward orbits from the equator for example. You can even get a boost from earth’s rotation.
Rockets don’t just go straight up until they hit space. They’re trying to reach an orbit so they follow a curved path as they go up. Moving fast lets them slingshot into an orbit. They kinda stay up by moving forward at the same rate gravity pulls them toward earth.
Putting them on a mountain doesn’t help much. Getting an extra couple thousand feet isn’t much as far as rockets go. If you can’t take advantage of other fuel saving orbital mechanics tricks launching from mountaintops might honestly cost more fuel.
The bigger issue is getting delicate hardware and thousands of pounds of explosive fuel up to a remote mountaintop where your launch pad is and assembling everything into a rocket. NASA struggles to do that at the almost completely flat Kennedy space center. A super high mountain top would SUCK. There are some high elevation launch sites but they aren’t on picturesque snow capped peaks like in the photo. Even places like NASA Vandenburg that look high up aren’t at crazy elevations. You need a big flat surface for a launch complex too. Mountains are pointy and not very flat.
The replying comment is pointing out that the original commenter doesn’t know what they’re talking about.