Is it due to energy demand or acceleration damaging the cargo/humans or something else?
In: 6
Contrary to popular belief, going to orbit isn’t a “shoot straight up” affair, it’s more a “go so fast sideways that you miss the ground when you fall”. However, we see pretty much every rocket launch start off straight up and only start turning way up high. Why is this?
Well, turns out air drag is exponentially harder the faster you go. That means if you are going really fast where the air drags you, you’re wasting a LOT of energy to it. So it’s actually cheaper, energy-wise, to spend some energy “unproductively” going to where the air is thinner and THEN start making progress to orbital ‘lateral’ speeds.
Where the heck do mass launchers figure into this? Well, if your cannon is on the ground, you can’t shoot up and expect orbit, you have to shoot sideways into a lot of air. That’s wasteful as hell. On top of that, if you do manage to launch at enough speed to overcome the loss, you’ll basically heat your vehicle exactly like reentry does, BUT VERY CLOSE TO THE LAUNCH SYSTEM. That’s probably not good to any of the equipment.
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