Astrophysicist launches idea for spaceport on Vancouver Island clear-cut

Or... replant them with trees.

Idiot.

Go to the Mainland...already lots of space cadets there.

Rather random idea, but it could work, I suppose.

Trees? What are you, some kind of eco-freak?

Trees? What are you, some kind of eco-freak?

Pot smoking Hippy, apparently.

Wouldn't Vancouver Island be at too high a latitude for commercial rockets?

Baikonur Cosmodrome is at 45 degrees - Tofino is at 49 degrees.

Not sure how much a difference 4 degrees would make.

Fill the damn spaces with trees!

Isn't VI too mountainous to predict the weather to a T?

Uh no. It rains and it's windy. Easy to predict.

Uh no. It rains and it's windy. Easy to predict.

So thats a no-go for that project

Baikonur Cosmodrome is at 45 degrees - Tofino is at 49 degrees.

Not sure how much a difference 4 degrees would make.

Fill the damn spaces with trees!




Soviets probably didn't exactly have safe, unfettered access to more equatorial latitudes, and so didn't have much choice. Canada does so it doesn't make sense to launch rockets from Canada just to prove a point.

The extra "kick" you get from the Earth's rotation falls off as you go farther from the equator as the cosine of the latitude. At 45 degrees it's only 71% (actually the square root of .5) what you get at the equator, at 49 degrees it's 66%. That extra 4 degrees costs 5% of the assistance from the Earth's rotation. Cape Canaveral, at 28 degrees has only lost 12% of that kick.

Sorry, Shep got me in a sciency mood today....

Edit: So yea, plant trees not launch pads.

After living on the Island for 10 years I think I can safely say that Islanders hate noise. I can't see the Tofino band council agreeing to this, nor any other for that matter. Plus it's not exactly an easy trek to get to these locations by car, and it's pretty damn expensive to live there. Not going to happen.

Concur.