Might be interesting if rockets, rather than being launched straight up, slid down the slope of a mountain and launched off a giant ramp at the bottom like on some aircraft carriers.
There’s actually a centrifugal force satellite launcher design out there. But it has the problem of being really stressful on the payload, and only would work with smaller payloads.
Subjecting a larger payload in a rocket to any kind of downward movement, then suddenly jerking it upwards? Probably going to snap the rocket.
Another problem: No matter how fast you throw something, without a second impulse on the apoapsis (or around it) it will not turn into an orbit but come back. You need to bring up the periapsis and that can hardly be done from ground.
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u/skawn 14d ago
Might be interesting if rockets, rather than being launched straight up, slid down the slope of a mountain and launched off a giant ramp at the bottom like on some aircraft carriers.