[SpaceProgram] DARPA-RA-11-70 100YSS Notification

[Stuart Young]

On Jan 3, 2012 11:27 AM, "Atrus" <atrus6 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What exactly is the benefit of having a high altitude launch platform?
You would still need to reach essentially the same escape velocity, but
only have ~half the distance to achieve that velocity. That seems like a
worse trade off (assuming that your perceived benefit is less air
resistance).

Benefits (apart from air resistance):

1. Less gravity to escape (inverse square law).
2. Less fuel to carry in the actual rocket (less mass to move to get a
payload to escape velocity), which should make things simpler (no need for
multiple stages, simpler avionics).
3. Less differences in engine design (high/low atmospheric pressure
compensation in design not necessary) which simplifies engine and avionics
design.

And that is just the ones that I can think off of the top of my head.

Btw: Written from my phone, while on site at a client, so pls excuse any
errors in the text.

--
Cef
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