Short · Space
Why launch rockets from a 20 km tower?
Neal Stephenson thinks somebody ought to build a tower 20 km tall with a rocket on top. Up there 94.6% of the air is below you: less drag, less noise, and the engine can wear a big vacuum bell from liftoff. A NASA Glenn study found that from 20 km a single-stage rocket carries about twice the payload, because payload is only 2% of that rocket. The catch: orbit still needs nearly 8 km/s, sideways.
Opens Tall Tower Launch. Change the same thing yourself.
Transcript
Neal Stephenson thinks somebody ought to build this: a tower twenty kilometers tall, with a rocket on top. Why? Up there, ninety-five percent of the air is below you. Less drag, less noise, and the engine can wear a huge vacuum bell. Now raise the tower. At twenty kilometers, NASA researchers found a single-stage rocket carries twice the payload. Payload is just two percent of that rocket, so a small gain doubles it. The catch: orbit still needs nearly eight kilometers per second, sideways. Raise the tower yourself at Explainer Tools dot com.
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More ways to space
A tower is one of four launch ideas Neal Stephenson studied at Blue Origin. The guide compares all four, and the other three films are here.
- Topic guideWhat are the ways to space besides a rocket from the ground?Towers, slings, space guns and whips: what each buys, what each costs, and why rockets won.
Short · 36 secondsHow does SpinLaunch throw rockets into space?SpinLaunch throws its rockets: double the speed and the force quadruples, to about 10,000 g.
Short · 39 secondsWhy build a 10 km space gun?Longshot’s 10 km gun spreads the push out: a few hundred g for satellites, never for people.
Short · 39 secondsWhy does a whip crack?A whip crack is a tiny sonic boom, and Stephenson’s giant steel whips would give a rocket a head start.