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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: benwood who wrote (49520)	5/1/2009 7:59:46 PM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Respond to of 218631

Okay, if we are going to bicker over details, yes, it's true that right at lift-off, the gravitational force is a tiny bit higher sitting on top of Mt Everest than in the Dead Sea basin. But it's a very short distance from the top that the extra gravity of the mountain becomes vanishingly small compared with the overwhelming gravity of Earth. I guess 5 kilometres would render it irrelevant. So, it would be better to launch from the top of Mt Everest than from the Dead Sea [especially if Mt Everest was moved south to the equator - even though the gravitational force at the equator is greater than at the poles]. Minimizing drag matters, even if it's just to keep the tiles intact. Sitting around blasting fuel just to support the weight instead of accelerating is a waste of fuel. Less air means less hanging around waiting for sufficient altitude to reduce drag sufficiently to make burst blood vessels the limiting factor. I reckon this is done enough for my liking. The maths to be precise is far more than I'm interested in doing. Back to our regular programme for me. Mqurice PS: In passing, since Ilaine is lurking, they could increase lift if they'd deploy the photovoltaic wings during launch... [old in-joke from a time when I explained how the photovoltaic wings on Globalstar satellites are what keep them in orbit].