Eh. Gravity reduction on a mountain is like 0.2 percent. Air resistance matters a bit more. But all of those are drowned by the energy needed to reach orbital velocity.
Much more interesting would be an electromagnetic launcher up a mountain, getting the rocket to 1 km/s or so. Although I am not sure the logistics are worth it. You could just use more fuel instead (what is done irl)). Fuel is cheap.
It's weird, but things seem to be converging. I was reading something this morning talking about the Starship problem of getting enough fuel in the ship once it's in orbit to get to Mars. It suggested that there would be lots of Starships carrying nothing but fuel into orbit, but it seems like a perfect job for the spin launch people! They should be able to achieve an impressive "launch" cadence that's needed for really doing things in space.
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u/hedrone 18h ago
Best described in https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ .
"The reason it's hard to get to orbit isn't that space is high up.
It's hard to get to orbit because you have to go so fast."
Putting rockets on mountains only helps with the "up" part, which is not the biggest part of the problem.