[sdenton4]

I once had a fun week playing Kerbal Space Program building solar-powered quadcopter launch platforms...

Basically a quadcopter which is mostly a big platform with a rocket payload in the middle. The quadcopter slowly ascends to the highest feasible altitude, bypassing all of the worst of the air resistance, and greatly reducing the delta v needed to get into orbit as a result.

This was mainly helping with the atmospheric drag problem, though; you would presumably need a lot of atmosphere to get far enough from the planet to help with the increased need for horizontal speed with a super massive planet.

Oh hey I found an old screenshot: https://imgur.io/zq8iyV0?r

[M_bara]

Not a rocket scientist or even a physicist.. but if i remember right, the bulk of your energy in a rocket is expended on your horizontal speed not the height gain. I came across this when I was looking up if it made sense to launch a rocket from an equatorial mountain like Kilimanjaro (6000m asl)

[marcosdumay]

Keep in mind that KSP happens in "easy mode" where all of the atmospheric drag, gravity pulling, and orbital speed are smaller, but they are smaller by completely non-proportional amounts.

Last time I looked, there was a mod that made Kerbin like Earth. I suggest you try it.

[mapmap]

Were you able to land the quadcopter part and recover the cost?

[sdenton4]

Sadly, once you lose focus on a craft in atmosphere it is lost. So shortly after you start piloting the launched probe, the quadcopter gets garbage collected by Kerbin's atmosphere.