Energetics of getting into Orbit

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
September 15, 2009 - 4:23pm
I ran across this the other day and though you guys would appreciate it.  It's a blog post about the energy cost of just getting into orbit.  http://wiki.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog/posts/post_1251819060090.html.  The poster is a former NASA Flight Director and does some great posts.  He compares a bunch of different activities from an energy perspective.  The bottom line is that it takes over 1,000x as much energy to get in to orbit with the space station as it does to fly a commercial airliner at cruising altitude.  It's a good read.
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Comments:

pineappleleader's picture
pineappleleader
September 15, 2009 - 7:22pm
Interesting. The math was beyond me. But I get the main idea.