Moving a Bunch of People to the Rotovator

some cool stuff, but I'm snipping straight to:

> Remember though, after this is built, we still need a well
> developed sub-orbital infrastructure to get the tourists up to
> 145km. Not just a few, but a few hundred per day.

You take the fuselage of a Boeing 727(1), and rebuild it with
updated (not future or near-future) tech, such as composite
materials. Build another just like it. Build a fuel tank the same
size and shape. Put the two fuselages side by side, with say a metre
between them. Put the fuel tank beneath and between.

Put a cylinder, (say, two metres diameter) on top and between.
Then you stick on one of those pivoting oblique wings. So now the
thing doesn't go "BOOM" until you reach mach 2-point-something. The
cylinder contains wing-moving equipment and anything else that I've
forgotten.

Now, this looks like a collection of pipes, so we need to "blend"
the contours together. We also need a heat shield for re-entry. So
we cover it all with a heat-resistant material. So take out
the "inner walls," as it were, of the two fuselages and leave that 1-
metre spacing between as an extra-wide aisle, useful for emergences,
providing larger restrooms, etc.

We use J58 jet engines from the SR-71 Blackbird (2) and COBRA (3)
or RS-68 (4) rocket engines. The number and placement of these
engines is something we can talk about, if you like. Just for fun,
we run it at 5 G's down a 10 km maglev runway.

Re-entry is belly-down, with the wing held lengtwise along the top
until speeds drop to the point that wings are a good thing.

We can now take 125 to 300 passengers to dock with the rotovator.
Per flight. Or perhaps we man-rate Sea Dragon.

Xenophile (wishing he could buy a ticket)

(1) http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/rundberg/267/727.htm

(2) http://www.hill.af.mil/museum/photos/coldwar/j58.htm

(3)
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/sli_cobra_020904.ht
ml

(4) http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rlv-02d.html