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"Super-Earth" planets are giant-size versions of Earth, and some research has suggested that they're more likely to be habitable than Earth-size worlds. But a new study reveals how difficult it would be for any aliens on these exoplanets to explore space.
To launch the equivalent of an Apollo moon mission, a rocket on a super-Earth would need to have a mass of about 440,000 tons (400,000 metric tons), due to fuel requirements, the study said. That's on the order of the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
"On more-massive planets, spaceflight would be exponentially more expensive," said study author Michael Hippke, an independent researcher affiliated with the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany. "Such civilizations would not have satellite TV, a moon mission or a Hubble Space Telescope."
https://www.space.com/40375-super-earth-exoplanets-hard-aliens-launch.html
[Also Covered By]: GIZMODO
[Paper]: Spaceflight from Super-Earths is difficult
[Related]: 10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 24 2018, @04:50PM
I'm not sure that it makes those methods more viable, but it sure doesn't make them less viable.
The problem is, once you get high enough, you still need to lift off against a greater gravitational pull. Orbital velocities are higher, escape velocity is higher, etc. You get this "higher velocity requirement" for free with a stronger gravity.
OTOH, if the atmosphere were dense further out (lots further out) like that of Venus, then balloons might actually be a better first stage. But I'm having a hard time thinking of that kind of a planet as a Super-Earth. It would be more like a Hypo-Jupiter (except for having a necessary rocky core...but most of my life we didn't know that Jupiter didn't have one, and we're still not sure).
With an atmosphere that reaches far enough from ground a nuclear powered plane might be a reasonable "one stage to orbit" vehicle. But that's not a SuperEarth.
Still, with a SuperEarth I expect that you could get to orbit with a nuclear powered spaceplane. It just wouldn't be any trivial exercise. You'd basically need to get above orbital velocity while still in the atmosphere, where you could use the atmosphere as working material for your nuclear powered jet. I'm rather sure that no chemical fuel would be energetic enough to make this work.
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