[extropy-chat] balloon stations at the edge of space

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 09:45:18PM -0700, Johnius wrote:

>   This thread reminds me of an invention of Win Wenger's
> that uses balloons to suspend a mass-driver for cheap
> space launches.  It occurs to me that several of you might
> have some great feedback about the idea...
> What do y'all think?

It sounds like a really good idea... until you do the math, and realize that
LEO energy is all not about height, but about horizontal velocity component.
And that goes with 0.5*m*v^2.

So a ramp and a maglev stage (or a hypersonic airbreathing scramjet stage)
brings you much, much closer to LEO than any stratospheric balloon.

Latter have their own uses, though.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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