- Reaction score
- 1,309
- Points
- 1,040
Not necessarily true. Recall that the Saturn V was being pushed away from earth from a velocity of zero, and all that power was needed to overcome the intertia, which also included the mass of the rocket itself.Oldgateboatdriver said:The station is too big to be pushed up into high altitude (geosync or past that). Older people may recall that the whole third stage rocket of the Saturn V booster was required just to let the LM, the Apollo capsule and the command module escape from earth's gravity. The space station is at least a hundred times bigger.
I hate referring to Wikipedia, but:
And I know, that's just getting it started. It then wasn't even in orbit.The first stage burned for about 2 minutes and 41 seconds, lifting the rocket to an altitude of 42 miles (68 km) and a speed of 6,164 miles per hour (9,920 km/h) and burning 2,000,000 kilograms (4,400,000 lb) of propellant.
Two stages, velocity more easily understood in km/s vice km/h, but not quite in orbit.After S-IC separation, the S-II second stage burned for 6 minutes and propelled the craft to 109 miles (176 km) and 15,647 mph (25,182 km/h– 7.00 km/s), close to orbital velocity.
The ISS is already in orbit, and it doesn't need to go to escape velocity, but yes, it would be a monumental task to get it to geosynchronous orbit. That or the Lagrange point between here and the moon, if that's practicable at all. (having read your post about "our friend" just now)
The advantage of putting something "up higher" is that there is already plenty of velocity, and using that velocity