Alternative Space Launch Sites
- Thread starter Delta Force
- Start date
FWIW, Werner von Braun used Christmas Island in his novel Project Mars as a launch site for the Mars expedition. I think it, or maybe Johnston Island is used in his book Men to the Moon, also.
katchen
Banned
Don't forget Israel's launch site south of Tel Aviv at Palmachim (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Space_Agency). Israel also has an independent satellite launch capability, although with non-friendly Arab neighbors to the east, Israel is the one nation that must launch it's satellites in retrograde (East to West) orbit with all the fuel to payload cost and collision risk that entails.
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Looking at it, I think the main trajectories out of such a site would involve direct overflight of Hispanola during what would be first stage flight. Low and slow means high risk of hitting something at any given moment of failure. Something on the northern side of the island would be better, like MOa, that way you could take the northern node for equatorial flights and head out past a whole lot of nothing into the Atlantic. Not sure it'd be usable for polar, though, checking the the trajectories. So you'd still need someplace else for that.
What about Puerto-Rico for the US? Sure it's not exactly got ease of access, but at just over 18° off the equator, it's a lot closer than the ~28.5° of Cape Canaveral. Alternatively, you could shave it back to under 8° if you could hire a launch site in southern Panama (Las Tablas, Los Santos maybe), and if you pick somewhere on the east side of Azuero Peninsula, you get over 100 miles of open sea between the launch site and any inhabited land.
Puerto Rico's pretty decent. You'd have pretty good equatorial access, and I think you might be able to squeak out a polar shot up the north atlantic.
By 100 miles, you're actually getting into the prime nominal drop zone for first stages, something like 300 to 700 miles or so? Columbia, Venezuela and Brazil would probably not appreciate that.
Delta Force
Banned
Puerto Rico comes with some political uncertainty. However, the United States Virgin Islands are nearby with similar geographical advantages. St. Croix also has a large airport (Henry E. Rohlsen) and the Hovensa Oil Refinery, one of the largest in the world. The presence of a major oil refinery would help with some of the logistical issues involved with launching rockets and other aircraft and spacecraft from an island, as the plant could produce high grade jet and rocket fuels as needed.
Delta Force
Banned
Are there any ideal geographical locations for polar launches, or does it not matter because you can't get the speed/payload boost from launching in the direction of Earth's rotation?
In a Commonwealth context, Australia had two contenders as launch sites: either Woomera, which was used for the various British missile tests in the 1950s and 1960s (and is still in use as an RAAF testing range), or the Cape York Peninsula at the northeast tip of Australia, which was promoted as a new space launch site at the end of the 1980s. Quite a good potted history on the concept of Cape York as a launch site and the various schemes thought up over the years is here - http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2013/10/21/whatever-happened-to-the-cape-york-spaceport/
HW
HW
let take a example that never flown the Titan IIIM for Manned Orbital Laboratory
Payload into 185 km Polar Orbit .from Vandenberg AFB (California) 14476 kg.
Payload inro 185 km 28° Orbit from Cape Canaveral AFB (Florida) 18121 kg.
That 20 % more payload the reason is Orbit and location of Vandenberg AFB
Data on Space Shuttle Booster impact zone
Thrust-to-weight might not be as important for in-space propulsion, but empty mass fraction certainly is. Considering the mass of the reactor and the low density of the fuel (entirely LH2 at 70 kg/m³ vs. mixture of 6:1 LOX and LH2 at ~280 kg/m³), resulting in bulky and heavy tankage, you get only a small advantage for NTRs against chemical stages. Not enough to go through all the hassle of NTR production, launch and operations.
The ULTIMA Thrust-to-weight and with "launch from earth direct to target" is the Nuclear Pulse Engine.
Like the name say it use series of nuclear explosion to catapult the Ship into orbit and true space.
the Engineer on that program study "standard size" of 4000 tons to up 8 million tons liftoff mass.
they proposed Nevada field or giant concrete platform in pacific ocean as launch site
but there were that little problem with radioactive fallout...
Canada's most likely launch sites would be Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and Churchill, Manitoba.
katchen
Banned
Vancouver Island?
For a polar launch site, Port Alberni BC or even Tofino on Vancouver Island would work quite well--as well as Vandenburg-Lompoc. Remember, Vancouver Island slants westward from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. And proximity to population centers and industry and infrastructure that does not need to be built from the ground up is also a factor.
katchen
Banned
cape york improvements
www.skyscrapercity.com › ... › Urban Spaces › Transportation the Cape York Peninsular Developmental
Highway (that's a mouthful
) is being radically improved, making Cape York a lot more feasible
as a space launch site for Australia even IOTL. You might want to narrow it down to exactly where
in Cape York. RIght on the Cape? Weipa, by the bauxite mine? Or perhaps near Laura just north
of Cooktown where it can take advantage of closer infrastructure including the Port of Cairns (though
Cairns can only take so much development without damaging the Great Barrier Reef). A lot of environ
mental issues involved with Cape York.
Darwin might actually be a feasible alternative site, since launch trajectories go slightly northeast
and thus avoid Aboriginal Reserve land and the Kakadu to the east. With enough space business,
both launch sites might be in business. To paraphrase Pinky Pie, one space launch site makes
about as much sense as one party.
As we can see from this article
www.skyscrapercity.com › ... › Urban Spaces › Transportation the Cape York Peninsular Developmental
Highway (that's a mouthful
) is being radically improved, making Cape York a lot more feasible as a space launch site for Australia even IOTL. You might want to narrow it down to exactly where
in Cape York. RIght on the Cape? Weipa, by the bauxite mine? Or perhaps near Laura just north
of Cooktown where it can take advantage of closer infrastructure including the Port of Cairns (though
Cairns can only take so much development without damaging the Great Barrier Reef). A lot of environ
mental issues involved with Cape York.
Darwin might actually be a feasible alternative site, since launch trajectories go slightly northeast
and thus avoid Aboriginal Reserve land and the Kakadu to the east. With enough space business,
both launch sites might be in business. To paraphrase Pinky Pie, one space launch site makes
about as much sense as one party.
katchen
Banned
And yes, that's why here in the US IOTL, Edwards AFB-Mohave, CA is emerging as "private launch city" with Albaquerque maybe a close second. Basically what you want is your launch site close to infrastructure in terms of roads and railroads and plenty of vacant land, either in desert or ocean for at least 200 miles downrange in the event of a crash. And oh yes. If that downrange site is on land, it needs to be over your territory. Mohave has that because of the Mohave Desert. White Sands because of White Sands and the Tularosa Valley. Both are near major cities where components can easily be built and loads assembled. That consideration can outweigh the advantages of getting a bit closer to the equator if one chooses a remote island or a site in an underdeveloped but equatorial nation. After all, the ultimate goal is a "space elevator" that can send bulk cargo up into high orbit, microgravity manufactured products down and perhaps even pipe dissolved toxic wastes that are difficult to dispose of on earth but which can be dissolved in salt water and therefore piped up into orbit using magnetohydrodynamic fields and linear induction mass driving (since salt water is an excellent electrical conductor). All this mass could then be reused industrially up there or used as reaction mass for deep space ion rockets since the use of any material as rocket exhaust results in that material ultimately being accelerated out of the solar system with the solar wind if exhausted beyond the Earth's Van Allen Belts). It might even be possible in 50 years to permanently dispose of large quantities of carbon dioxide that way. It's just a matter of having the infrastructure built and in place to do it cost effectively.