Re: Optimal location of world capital

Derek Lyons wrote:
It doesn't make any sense to choose an eastward launch over a westward
one - the performance hit on a modern booster is simply a nonissue.

But it's not. You really do get a measurable and significant benefit from launching west, and the fact that modern boosters are spiffier than older boosters doesn't reduce that benefit - for any given booster regardless of its specs you can launch a larger payload to orbit going east than you can going west. Boosters aren't so cheap that a larger payload doesn't matter, nobody's going to reject "free" payload without some good reason. Since this capital/spaceport can be located anywhere on Earth I don't see any good reason.

We seem to be going over and over the same argument here, perhaps there's simply some differing underlying philosophy you have that I'm not getting. Do you have some specific reason for preferring westward launch that boosts their value to match that of eastward launch?
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