The minimum altitude needed to orbit the Earth is 200 km. This altitude is temporary since there is a high degree of atmospheric drag causing orbital decay. Orbital altitude is not dependent on the location of the launch site.
An orbital altitude of 282 km happens to work out to exactly 16 revolutions around the planet in one 24–hour period of time. A spacecraft would pass over the same geographic location at the same time of day every day ad nauseum. This situation would allow for regularly scheduled spaceflight launches and recovery since the ground tracks repeat. This altitude, however, is not suitable for a large and heavy space station that would constantly need to be re–boosted due to orbital decay.
A better altitude is 901 km, which orbits the Earth exactly 14 times per day. This altitude provides for an extremely stable orbit essentially free of decay and will be perfect for a large and heavy space station without the inconvenience of repetitive re–boost. More importantly, this situation would allow for regularly scheduled spaceflight launches and recovery since the ground tracks repeat. Launches would occur at the same time of day every day.
The blueprint calls for the RV to turn south from the Spaceport and fly to the Gulf of Mexico (see Image 1) to an orbital inclination of 60 degrees and an orbital altitude of 901 km. We will call this a Standard Orbit.
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| Image 1: Orbital Ground Track from Spaceport America |
The RV will fly along the southern border of Texas along the Rio Grande River (see Image 2). Since this is a relatively rural area, there will be fewer people harmed by a rocket crashing. This zone will be called "El Corredor" ("The Corridor") which encompasses the area from the Spaceport to the Gulf Coast.
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| Image 2: Close Up View of First Orbital Ground Track |
This no–fly El Corredor zone can and will be overcome by the use of political and economic persuasion. Once the initial funding has been secured, we will have the leverage to negotiate overfly rights deals with state and local governments, since $100 billion will give us tremendous political clout.
There will be many bribes political action committee donations to ensure legislation favorable to our endeavors. And we will of course purchase insurance for the residences that lie underneath the flightpath of the RV, in addition to giving out a small cash amount in the form of a "thank you."
Table 1 summarizes the required orbital parameters of the VentureStar RRV launching from Spaceport America and flying into Standard Orbit.