Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfoutz | Hacker News Reader

Netherlands whole coastline is what, 450 miles? For a 850 billion gdp it makes sense to have a high quality system in place. You guys are facing a billion euro/year to just update the existing system [1].

Nasa needs to protect 70 miles, 1/6th of you're whole country's coast. That far south in the Atlantic has much more extreme weather. So in addition to building a system, they'd need to build a much more robust system, compared to the Netherlands, to deal with the extremes.

Is it possible? Hell yeah, they're smart people. Is it worth it? eh. Maybe just move and have a few more mars explorers instead. The big buildings and tracks are cool, but offices hangars and tracks are much simpler (and cheaper!) to build than a hurricane proof levee system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_control_in_the_Netherlan...

View on HN

Plus, as the NYT article points out, KSC "sits in the middle of a vast wildlife refuge", which limits what can be done. Also, the ground is permeable - it doesn't help to build a dike if the water can seep up through the ground.

Hey, in Colorado we have plenty of open space a mile above sea level. This is not an impossible barrier.

Hey, in New Mexico we already have a spaceport. http://spaceportamerica.com/ Also, we have enough open space that occasionally we get nuked. So that's pretty sweet.

They won't be able to do orbital flights from spaceportamerica.

Orbital flights would be no problem, although equatorial orbits would require more fuel.

I think the FAA would have a very big problem with ballistic trajectories crossing populated areas.

I don't think you have enough space for rockets to launch without parts potentially landing on people. Even the Russians end up dropping spent stages in areas that aren't entirely empty: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikonur_downrange.html

Eh, it's difficult to muster much concern for Kansas. Besides, with re-use becoming more popular, there's less reason to drop spare parts downrange.

Reuse cuts down on the problem a lot, but there's still the possibility of things going wrong and debris coming down on stuff you'd rather stayed not-flat.

Further south matters. Basically, from the earth's rotation, you get 1000 MPH x cos(lattitude) of free velocity toward orbit, so being closer to the equator is a fairly big deal.

It's nice, but remember that Russia launches from 45N, so it isn't that critical. The boost is 880mph for KSC, vs. 790mph for Denver vs. 710 mph for Baikonur. The deltas are only 100-200 mph, vs. the 17,500 mph needed for orbit.

The worst case is Israel, which for geographic and geopolitical reasons has to launch to the west instead of east. Even that's only about a 30% penalty in payload. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Space_Agency#Palmachim_...

It depends on what orbit you're trying to reach. Looking at the raw speed needed doesn't tell the whole story, because now that the space race is over and most launches actually try to do something besides set a record, you can't just launch into whatever orbit is convenient.

If you're going for something highly inclined then it doesn't matter at all. Launching to the ISS from Baikonur is no more costly than launching to the ISS from Canaveral or Guiana. Launching into a high equatorial orbit, like for a comsat, is far more costly because you can't naturally achieve an inclination lower than the latitude of the launch site, so you need an expensive plane change. If you wanted to launch into a low equatorial orbit for some reason then it would be even worse, and the high-latitude launch sites would become impractical.

And actually, Israel is far from the worst case. The worst case would be something like launching into an equatorial orbit from a site at one of the poles. This would require something like 25-30% more delta-v, which because of the rocket equation means vastly more rocket for the same payload. But for a polar orbit, launching from the poles would be fine, actually very slightly better than an equatorial launch site because you wouldn't have to cancel out the speed you get from the Earth's rotation.

You make valid objections to my objections of the simplified model of the g'parent poster. We were indeed only talking about putting something into orbit, not putting something into useful orbit.

That said, I pointed out that Israel has geographical and geopolitical difficulties, which force them to launch to the west rather than east. Would it be harder for Israel to place something in GEO from Palmachim, which must first travel west over the Mediterranean before going east, or for Sweden to place something in GEO from Esrange, which requires a plane change?

(I'm trying to be somewhat realistic. I think Esrange is the most poleward launch facility, though they only do suborbital. Otherwise, consider a possible Norwegian launch facility on Svalbard.)

Thinking about it more, once you get to the point where a bi-elliptic transfer is the most efficient way to do a plane change, the launch site doesn't make a lot of difference. That's basically Baikonur and up, counting Israel as effectively having a ~150-degree latitude.

Anyway, the penalties can be pretty big, but they're often tolerable. For GEO you want minimal latitude, for others latitude may not matter at all. But other considerations (like Israel having land to the east) can easily override the penalties.

For the particular example discussed here, if you could ignore the problems with squishing people and buildings downrange, Colorado would make a decent launch site. KSC's latitude is better, but it wouldn't be a huge deal. You'd even get at least a little bit of it back because you'd be launching from higher altitude.

And is this counteracted at all by the mile head-start out of the gravity well?

Also, for spent stages, the population density of Kansas isn't that much higher than the Atlantic, they're basically identical after rounding. /s

No, not really. It's only 1/250th of the way up, and the hard part is to go sideways real fast, not up. https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/ .

The lawsuits are $0, after rounding to the nearest trillion.

> The lawsuits are $0, after rounding to the nearest trillion.

Exactly so!

Wait, you caught the sarcasm tag right?

Yes, I did. It was marred, however, by the image of my Kansas relatives being killed by falling rocket debris.

As a Kansan myself, I like to think most of my relatives can handle a modicum of dark humor.

Ahh, but I am not a Kansan.

Because eastward launches net you more delta-V, you also benefit a lot from not having anyone to the east of you on whom to drop spent stages.

Plus the closer you are to the equator, the less (very fuel-expensive) orbital correction you need to get to geostationary orbit. Being close to the Tropic of Cancer, Florida's pretty well-positioned in this respect.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your comment. Are you switching to NASA's other option, which is to "strategically retreat", and suggesting CO?

I am not commenting on NASA's options; I am hardly qualified. I'm simply pointing out that there are plenty of areas on the continent far away from sea-level issues (although as other posters have commented there are other reasons to avoid the area). I'm enjoying the commentary on why the option is untenable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com