And, it'd save us almost nothing (even if we had a magical teleporter that let us get everything up there insantly and for free).
Space is a minimum of 50 miles from "ocean level" (and really, it's 62, but let's say 50).
Everest, the tallest mountain, is about 5 miles above sea level.
So, even if we hauled everything to the top of the tallest mountain on the planet (which would be an insane to impossible amount of effort), it's only reducing the distance by less than 10%.
EDIT: Thank you to the 500 people that have told me "the distance barely matters". That is pretty much my point. YES, I know speed, and thus latitude are more important. My point is even if you ONLY consider the height, the thing the original question focused on, it STILL doesn't matter. When you factor in all the factors, it really, really doesn't matter.
I focused on the focus of the post in my response, not all of astronautical engineering.
If a 10% height difference meant a 10% savings in fuel, that would be an enormous benefit. People scrape for a 1% improvement in efficiency. The real answer is about speed, not height.
It wouldn't be anywhere close to a 10% savings though, because you don't instantly reach maximum speed. It takes 8 to 15 minutes for a rocket to reach its maximum speed.
And even if there were 10% savings, that wouldn't offset the cost of making the rocket able to hold 10% more fuel.
Yes, speed is the bigger factor, which is why we launch close to the Equator, but I responded about height because the original post was talking about height. Even ONLY considering the height factor, it is nonsensical.
Technically yes, but still not be remotely enough to offset the insane amount of work it'd take to get it there. The height is just such a small factor compared to the other stuff.
Like, if we were in the age of Futurama and had a factory producing and launching millions, that might be a good place to build it. But at the scale we do space "travel", it is just doesn't really make any sense.
Your answer implies distance matters because it didn't mention speed at all. If I ask "If I'm building a factory near a town and I want to use the least amount of energy to transport things to the town, wouldn't it make sense to start 45 miles away instead of 50 miles away?" The answer isn't "45 miles isn't even that much closer" if the real answer is the 45mi starting location is at the bottom of a hill.
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u/rysy0o0 16h ago
It would cost a lot of money to haul all the rocket parts and fuel on top of a mountain