I’ve been wondering what a hypothetical perfect habitable planet for spacefaring would look like. Could you have one where a plane line the SR-71 Blackbird or an even less capable aircraft could simply “fly” into orbit? Or what about something Earth-like but with a flat plateau at 15,000 m where you could launch rockets from?
Classic planes require an atmosphere to generate lift. There’s an outer limit where that would be a viable mechanism, and on Earth it’s still far below LEO. Still too deep in the gravity well for ion thrusters to be viable. It requires chemical rocket fuels to bridge that gap.
Maybe someday fusion propulsion will break that limitations, but for now the best you can do is reduce the amount of fuel needed by flying to the upper atmosphere and reaching hypersonic speeds before kicking into rocket fuel propulsion.
Then after orbital injection, switching to ion thrusters to move around, and solar sails for exiting orbit into interplanetary/lunar routes.
I’ve been wondering what a hypothetical perfect habitable planet for spacefaring would look like. Could you have one where a plane line the SR-71 Blackbird or an even less capable aircraft could simply “fly” into orbit? Or what about something Earth-like but with a flat plateau at 15,000 m where you could launch rockets from?
Classic planes require an atmosphere to generate lift. There’s an outer limit where that would be a viable mechanism, and on Earth it’s still far below LEO. Still too deep in the gravity well for ion thrusters to be viable. It requires chemical rocket fuels to bridge that gap.
Maybe someday fusion propulsion will break that limitations, but for now the best you can do is reduce the amount of fuel needed by flying to the upper atmosphere and reaching hypersonic speeds before kicking into rocket fuel propulsion.
Then after orbital injection, switching to ion thrusters to move around, and solar sails for exiting orbit into interplanetary/lunar routes.
Mars is better for launching rockets into deep space than Earth because it has a lower gravity field and also thinner atmosphere.