[anonporridge]

The European Space Agency launches out of French Guiana in South America for this reason.

I assume we don't launch out of Mexico because rocket technology is tightly controlled by ITAR, so there's no way the government would allow any of it to go to another country's sovereign territory.

[ttepasse]

On the other hand the United States has a lot of overseas colonies which are nearer to the equator. Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, a lot of atolls in the pacific, Guam. Even Hawaii is more southern.

I assume shipping to the launch pads is a major issue, especially for the Apollo, Space Shuttle and SLS programs which were/are build all over the place in the continental US.