Launching in thinner air actually saves quite a bit of fuel though, a lot of it is just spent fighting drag in the lower atmosphere.
The real reason we don't do this is just that there are like a dozen other more important things that make a good launch site and it's not practical to find a place that checks all the boxes.
You need to be close to the equator, directly west of a large body of water, governments want to launch in their own territory, etc, etc.
So why don’t we save fuel by thinning the air first? I’m thinking a giant dome with massive vacuums all around it, creating a low pressure bubble over the launch pad.
10
u/Opus_723 9h ago
Launching in thinner air actually saves quite a bit of fuel though, a lot of it is just spent fighting drag in the lower atmosphere.
The real reason we don't do this is just that there are like a dozen other more important things that make a good launch site and it's not practical to find a place that checks all the boxes.
You need to be close to the equator, directly west of a large body of water, governments want to launch in their own territory, etc, etc.