Space Rockets

For the same reason that your Dish or Direct TV antenna can be mounted on the ground, and not the roof. It just doesn't matter that much.

The other reason is the reason why NASA's Mission Control Center is located in Houston, Texas, while they launch from Florida................................... Politics!

Lyndon Johnson was from Texas.

True, but a mile difference is a lot more than going from the roof to the ground. When you see videos of rockets being launched, they seem to hover for a few seconds after countdown has reached zero and then slowly accelerates. A lot of fuel is spent just getting the rocket off the ground.

Your point is well taken. 5,000 feet is 5,000 feet.

But, JWthetech makes a good point also.

The USA launches, mostly from Canaveral and Vandenberg, both on the coasts, over water.

Gravity still has to be overcome when launching.

But, the biggest reason is that politicians who bring home the "pork" get re-elected.

Many of the early launches were made on the the west coast but after some rather spectacular failures and tradgedies most were moved to Cape Canaveral where they could be launched in the direction of the "empty" ocean and yet tracked well from the islands of the Caribean.

Smile: It makes people wonder what you have been into.

What about the rockets launched at Vandenburg? West coast, and all…Are they going into different orbits or …?

Well the closer you are to the equator the more velocity you gain from the Earth's rotation, and you need to get to 200 miles altitude for orbit and to get to that you need to hit escape velocity, so the speed is more relevant then the altitude, at least at this small scale.....plus you have the liability issue if the launch fails for some reason...There is the Pegasus launch system, which launches from a refurbished L-1011 airliner.

Here's a video of the launch about this time last year....

http://www.space.com/21762-new-solar-mission-launched-on-pegasus-rocket-video.html

If logic were to rule we would have a spaceport at Quito, Equador. It's almost ten thousdand feet above sea level and it's right on the equator.

It depends on the type of orbit desired.

Here is a link that explains it.

http://www.satellites.spacesim.org/english/anatomy/orbit/

And another link from NASA:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/sts/launch.html

I'm not an aeronautical engineer but there is quite a difference in air density between sea level and 5000ft so wouldn't there be more efficient thrust at close to sea level where the air is closer to 0.074 lbm/ft3 ? The first few moments after ignition is when the greatest thrust would be needed so I would assume that the difference between 0.05 and 0.07 could save a lot of fuel. But this is not my field so I bow to the experts out there.

If your reasoning is sound, how do you explain propulsion of rockets in a vacuum?

It's not about the air. That's why rockets don't need wings.

Rocket Thrust - Space Flight Systems - Nasa

Good point. I had not considered that.

Propellers won't work either.

A very important consideration is transportation. As you know some of the rockets and rocket sections are way too big and heavy to transport on conventional transportation such as truck or railcar. Also most of the components are not actually manufactured in Cape Canaveral. To get them to the Cape they are transported on barges. These have big enclosed decks to accommodate the large size and have weight capacities well over most other transports with minimal draft. The Cape is located adjacent to the intercostal waterway and the Atlantic Ocean so no matter where it is made it can be transported to it.

For comparison, can you imagine a vehicle as large as the rocket transporter, traveling down I-95 with a rocket or a part for one? Extremely big and would tie up traffic almost for ever.

http://www.space.com/14386-atlas-rockets-barge-bridge-crash.html

http://heroicrelics.org/info/msfc/saturn-barge-routes.html

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30166.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6z7SBaOmeM

Good Luck, Old Salt

If it saved a lot of energy, or solved some tricky design challenge, we would have made the logistics work. It's much easier to raise something to 4-5000 meters by land than it is by rocket.

Reading the links I provided will clear up most,if not all of your questions about chosen locations for launches.

Others have already mentioned the safety factor of launching eastward over water, and for the low latitude advantage. I bring up now one other possible reason. Humid areas may offer a lower risk in terms of static electricity (although I am pretty sure NASA (and others) take actions to reduce such risks related to unwanted fuel ignition). Many higher altitude locations will be typically lower humidity, thus more prone to static charge build up, although areas such as the cape also high a very high lightning strike probability, again an area of concern for NASA engineers.

I do believe the better answer in the long run will be re-usable vehicles that can roll from practically any runway, and fly to the upper reaches of the stratosphere before deploying the final craft for orbital insertion.

Thanks to all. I learn something new all the time from this forum. I have never been on a forum before with so many knowledgeable people in attendance.

A little more information can be gleaned from the El Paso newspaper a few years back

http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/morgue/2009/01/v2-rocket-off-course-falls-near-juarez.html

The missile folks realized they needed someplace further away from people than White Sands provided. Since the US already owned the Banana River naval Station at Cape Canaveral, it won out over Baja, California.

How would you have liked being the ambassador to Mexico, and try explaining this faux pas, or as Ricky used to say, "America, you gotta lotta 'splainin' to do."

Mazatlan would have been nice.

But just think of all the problems. They'd schedule a launch and two days later, a bleary-eyed, sun-burned astronaut would wander in looking for a cold Corona.

Might be 100% correct but I'm not sure. Patrick Air Force Base is about 15-20 miles from KSC and is often referred to as the old Banana River NAS. The then-undeveloped area now known as KSC might have been under Banana River NAS but I had not heard that before.

Either way the point is valid.

Well, you're right. Banana River NAS was incorporated into Patrick. Patrick needed someplace to put some of their bombing targets, so they used the Banana River Lagoon. Of course, they needed to restrict the area. The fish in the lagoon are the stuff of legend as some of it has not fished for better than half a century now.

One night many years hence, I was in Florida to watch Washington Senators spring training (and to drink beer), and went sea trout fishing across from the launch area. We had only gotten a few nibbles, it was getting on toward midnight, and we were about to call it a night, when NASA lit off an Atlas that they hadn't announced. Crikey! I thought the world was ending.

You get a little bit more of the earth's rotation speed closer to the equator if the rocket is launched in a easterly direction (which is generally the case). However, I think the most important factor is safety-- it can be launched over water from Florida in addition to getting the boost from the earth's rotation.

Dump One at Sea.

From Colorado.

MAS