Cape Breton Enters Space Race

thatguywhoiam writes "A private deal has been put into place to construct a large space facility in Cape Breton. The Toronto Star says '...that Nova Scotia has signed a "team agreement" to provide 300 acres of land — and perhaps even some funding — for a massive orbital launch facility that will involve industry giants and could eventually be on scale with huge NASA operations. "We're basically building a private manned space program for Canada," says Chicago's Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria, chairman of the PlanetSpace firm that lit the fuse for this deal. "The facility will see orbital flights, similar to the Kennedy Space Center."'"

Comments

Geographic Disadvantage

[necro81]

One reason why NASA put its launch facility at Cape Canaveral (and the missile range at Vandberg AFB) is that it is usually advantageous to launch as close to the equator as possible. Because the Earth's rotation, being at the equator means you have a greater starting velocity than if you launched from, say, the north pole. The rotation of the Earth, in radians per second, is the same for everyone, but your tangential velocity increases the farther you get from the axis of rotation. (It's easier to draw or demonstrate with a ball it is to describe)

This is why the ESA has a major launch facility in French Guiana, at just 5 degrees latitude.

A craft launching from Cape Breton, which lies at about 45 degrees north latitude, would only have about 70% of the initial velocity, and so only 1/2 the kinetic energy, as a craft that starts from the equator. The only way to get that extra energy you'll need to reach orbit is by burning more fuel.

Re:I think I speak for all of us in Nova Scotia...

[theshowmecanuck]

But you are drunk, right?

location, location, location

[The Fun Guy]

The USSR chose the location for the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the same reason the USA chose the location for the Kennedy Space Center... it's flat and it's about as close to the equator as you can get while still being within your territory. Had they known that it would end up in another country (Kazakhstan), they would have put it at a southernmost point within the boundaries of Russia. The closer you are to the equator, the more efficient your launches are.

The orbit of the ISS was chosen based on the latitude of Baikonur. In that respect, the Cape Breton latitude is OK, in that it matches Baikonur, and therefore matches ISS. To claim that this is a good latitude for launches that do anything other than match LEO stuff launched from Baikonur is overstating it.

Also, the TFA says

"Nova Scotia has signed a "team agreement" to provide 300 acres of land -- and perhaps even some funding -- for a massive orbital launch facility."

They provided some land rights, nothing more. No money, no personnel, no new roads or other infrastructure. This is pretty vaporous.