• PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social
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    16 hours ago

    With a denser atmosphere, wouldn’t that mean that you could get more lift from a traditional aerofoil than on earth? And if so, wouldn’t that technically make it easier to start from a high enough altitude that at least some of the gravity is mitigated?

    • bufalo1973@piefed.social
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      8 hours ago

      Let’s say you do the same on Earth. If you fly to the top of the atmosphere you are 100 km above the ground. That’s a 1/60 of the distance to the center of the Earth. You don’t have to fight air resistance but gravity is almost the same, if I’m not wrong, less than 1% of difference.

      • PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social
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        7 hours ago

        Yeah I realized that right after I made that comment. If the gravity is strong enough to hold a gas on the planet, it’ll definitely have a prominent effect on something denser like a solid.

    • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus
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      15 hours ago

      That’s what i was thinking - the dense atmosphere might even allow for platforms which are permanently suspended in the air like an inverse submarine, offsetting a large amount of needed fuel for a space launch