Why has not one of these new space entrepreneurs considered capitalizing on the benefits of an equatorial or near-equatorial launch site?  The closer to the equator a launch site is, the less thrust is needed to achieve orbit for a given mass.  This works by exploiting corriolis effect in the launch.  France's Guiana launch site is the principal reason their smaller Ariane rockets can compete at all with US or Russian launchers.

32 first stage engines burning Ethyl Alcohol and lox- how WW2ish?  One of the problems with Russia's N-1 Moon Rocket was 30 first stage engines and failed every time it was tried!

The last flight of the N1 lasted over a minute and failed when an excess of pressure was experianced after shutting down some of the other main engines.  It was a solvable plumbing problem largely instilled (from what I know) from what was a political power struggle in their rocket society.  The N1 was larger than the Saturn V and was four stages with only a one-person luner landing scenario vs two (if memory serves).  The fact that it flew at all is something to consider!  

The exact opposite could be said of the Soyuz, one of the safest launch vehicles ever, which uses a similar array of smaller engines vs several very large ones.

I also wondered about the Canadian launch site vs. an equatorial site.  It does make a big difference but if your funding is from Canada or if you are actually more interested in a polar orbit than an equatorial one then Canada would do just fine.  Polar orbits are far more useful for many scientific applications such as monitoring WMD or the environment.

One of the basic rules of engineering is: reduced part count can/should/usually does lead to greater reliability.  Going in the exact opposite direction - without an explicit, compelling reason as to why, this time, unlike past human experience, it is a smart thing to do - seems not responsible, to me.
And 'not wanting to be left behind' is a terrible 'reason' to do something; it is 100% emotional, and data and business-case free.
I would also note that even the Russians are migrating away, over time, from high-latitude launch sites. For the Canadians to be taking their place - again, without compelling reason as to how, in their business case/plan (if there is one) it is a smart thing to do, is not hopeful.
And I'm being polite.

With all the world's woes (Poverty, War, Global Warming, Weapons of Mass Destruction, etc.) I marvel at the shortsighted folly of governments and privateers looking to make money on space travel. Justification for spending exorbitant amounts of cash on such a program by saying it is a betterment of society is like attempting to link an I-Pod to a Saturn V rocket launch. The pragmatist in me would rather see all of that money which is being thrown at the development of sub-orbital joy-ride machines (for the neuveau rich of the world) being spent on a non-mid-eastern fueled power plant for my car. Where’s Doctor Emit Brown and his Flux Capacitor powered Delorian when you need him? ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM!

Launch site latitude doesn't matter for suborbital tourism.  For orbital operations, I agree that launching from Canada isn't ideal -- but it's certainly not a show-stopper either.

As to the clustering of engines, I agree that 32 a bit excessive -- it might be more efficient to scale the engine design up and use 8 or 16 of them.  But there are some advantages to clusters in general; in particular, you can often handle an engine-out very gracefully.

To Brian Cottle: space tourism may well be the spark that finally opens up the space frontier, and when that happens, there will be new solutions for a lot of the world's problems -- especially clean energy production.  So don't knock it; capitalism is a very powerful force, and one that hasn't gotten to act in space much until now.

People (and not necessairily wealthy themselves...lots of middle-class people have jobs making big-ticket items) make money through other products (yachts, luxury cars, etc.) that only the wealthy can afford. What can be the problem with providing a suborbital tourism capability that (at least initially) needs customers with deep pockets? (With all the sales and income taxes that come with any business. Expanding the tax base with new businesses, is always preferable to simply raising taxes.)

Oh, and that time traveling DeLorean (and the last BTTF movie explicitly stated that the 'Mr. Fusion' device only powered the flux capicitor...a normal internal combustion engine [or other conventional source] still had to get the car up to minimum speed) requires physics we don't know. We *do* know how to fly people above 100km and back, and do it off the public dime. The point of the X-Prize was to demonstrate that.

BTW, Elon Musk, one of those 'privateers looking to make money on space travel,' *is* working on a practical electric car...

http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/007446.html

...you see, before saying anything to the effect that "money (espically private money) spent on space, should be spent on (fill in blank) instead, look around. You may find that someone *is* addressing said problem, it just isn't as spectacular as a rocket launch. (Being 'Cosmic Log,' expect space related stuff at this particular site...for other things, look elsewhere) Technology can indeed walk and chew gum at the same time.

And all the money in the world, won't change the hearts and minds of those who want to make war, and create WMDs. It's not that kind of problem...

Great call on the suborbital flight not needing to take advantage of lower latatudes, Joe S.!

As for the engine clusters, Arn't the ones on the Soyuz really just one engine with 4 nozzels?  Even the Titan ICBM was one engine and two nozzels.  If that were the case, there is probably some pretty good advantages for such a design as there would probably be a sort of economy of scale for the pumbs and combustion chamber at least...

As others have noted, the latitude of the launch point doesn't matter for suborbital flights (Unless 'suborbital' means going a significant way around the Earth, instead of returning to the launch site. That would be a point-to-point travel service, and you just have to accept the straight-line path to whatever the destination is).

Launching as near as possible to the Equator is espically beneficial when the payload is going to geostationary orbit, which necessairily is in the same plane as Earth's equator. That's what the European facility in Kourou, French Guiana is mostly about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Centre_Spatial_Guyanais

But there are other concerns. A low equatorial orbit is not the best place for most other satellites. Those that observe Earth's surface (imaging, mapping, environmental monotoring, etc.) need higher inclination orbits, so as to pass over as much of the surface as possible. Polar orbits are often preferred, as eventually they will pass over everything, but you get no advantage from Earth's rotation when launching to them.

When orbital tourism becomes practical, this will also be important. A low equatorial orbit goes over the same (mostly ocean) area all the time, which won't please people who've spent significant money for a good look at their planet. (The only advantage is that a landing at the launch site is possible on every pass as well. This is not true at higher inclinations, depending on the ship's re-entry cross-range. You may have to wait several orbits to be able to get back to the launch point.) Again, polar would be ideal, but some compromise would be likely.

Also, unless your launcher is single-stage, or has a flyback first stage, equitorial launches must have open sea to the east, for safe first stage impacts, further limiting the number of places you can launch from.

(Israel has launched satellites *west* across the Meditarrenan Sea, working *against* Earth's rotation and taking a major performance hit, because the most efficient launch directions from there, means dropping stages on nearby countries already hostile to them. The Russians, who already have no mainland territory under their direct control that's very far south, also have always taken an additional performance penalty by launching on trajectories that don't overfly China on ascent. [the crew of a Soyuz mission that had to abort due to a staging problem, had to be reassured several times by their mission controllers that they would not come down in China] And Japan has to work around the operations of its fishing fleets when launching from Tanegashima.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3158310.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanegashima_Space_Center

The US is very fortunate to have Florida's climate, relatively low lattitude, and a clear shot across the North Atlantic. [mostly southeast 28.5 degree orbits, and sometimes high-inclination northeast launches that go parallel to the east coast] Even so, US polar launches are south out of Vandenberg AFB. Polar from KSC means possibly dropping stages on the northeastern US/Canada, or South Florida, Cuba and elsewhere.)

Are you on good terms with the govenment of a prospective launch site? Will you be on good terms with the next one? The equator and acceptably close areas also happen to pass through nations not known for their political stability or friendliness to the West.

It's not always the solution it seems...

Frank,
  Just thought of something.  Polar orbits would expose tourists to more solar radiation though probably not too significant.  I read that all the airline flights over the poles these days exposes people to about a day or so extra in the sun.  Not sure if being in orbit would make this significantly greater or not?  

Second, I think it was a bunch of college students who (from looking at orbital data of Soviet satalites seemingly out of place) correctly pin pointed a secret soviet launch site by inference!  

The French launch site is quite amazine!  Here we thought we were so smart with the gigantic crawller but they use a far simpler rail system and simply tow the entire Areane 5 platform out with A TRUCK!!

Ariane 5 just had another success so they seem to be doing very well.  They've got a lot in the works down there ranging from a contract with Russia to launch Soyuz, their ISS resupply vehicle (very large) and their new Vega rocket that just had a engine test firing!!  They are also working no a next gen system which may be something like a shuttle but with a flyback booster - that's still 15 years off though..

Equatorial launch sites have component storage issues because the weather is generally hot, humid and wet. Plus launches get scrubbed because of not infrequent tropical storms.

What did they say about the Wright brothers?

It is amazing how much time we spend on discussing things' and why we shouldn't do them instead of doing it.Space tourism is going to happen like it or not and it will likely have trickle down technologies that will help us all not to mention changing world economies once we start mining precious metals in space!Why not allow the engineers and entrepeneurs of this world think and act outside the box and get us free of the bonds of this earth!

sincerely Dr Keith Thompson

Brian said: "With all the world's woes (Poverty, War, Global Warming, Weapons of Mass Destruction, etc.) I marvel at the shortsighted folly of governments and privateers looking to make money on space travel."

The way I see it, there is no profit in combatting greed, the chief (and some say, only) cause of the above.  I'd rather spend money on a dream than waste it on fighting human nature.

Columbus should have spent the money from The queen of Portugal's jewels on dealing with the poverty in the country,  supporting women's rights in a, an protecting the Portuguese fish stock, not on senseless trips unknown lands. (I never could figure out why they needed to build expensive boats anyway  they could have used that money a lot better too)

Don't complain about how other's spend their money - make "better" choices with your own.

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