Launch Sites

Drveloping a spacecraft that can takeoff and land like an airplane has proven to be a formidable engineering challenge-- so much so, in fact, that it looks as if the classic, straight-up launchers will be with us for decades to come. Hopefully, more reuseability can be built into them, but by their nature, they will always need their own launch sites.

In order to avoid disasters at launch, it's best to have nothing downrange for a rocket to plow into. That was more important in the early days, but flying over a populated area still wouldn't be a good idea. One reason Cape Canaveral was picked as the main NASA launch site was that it allowed launches over the Atlantic.

Starting from scratch to build a launch site, you'd ideally want water to the east. Because Earth rotates west to east, launching a rocket to the east gives the rocket a headstart. That headstart is most pronounced at the equator. There, a given point on Earth is traveling east at about 1,000 miles an hour. (The circumference of Earth is about 25,000 miles, and Earth rotates once in 24 hours.) So, where would the ideal launch site be?

Grab a globe. One would be northern South America, which is why the European Space Agency launches from there. Another is Australia's Cape York, the northernmost part of that continental nation, and the Aussies have been talking about building a launch site there for years. The third would be Kenya, smack on both the equator and the east African coast.

A company called SeaLaunch is developing the capability to launch a rocket into space from the water, which means their launch platform could be towed to the equator. Seeing the mighty Saturn V as a sea creature, however, takes some doing. Certainly for now, SeaLaunch is concentrating on smaller vehicles.

When we finally develop launchers that can operate out of airports, all the above will quickly become obsolete. But until then, a good launch site is important.