Crazy and very wild idea

Omar,

Far from shooting holes in your idea, many may like it.

Putting a launcher at high altitude is an idea that Mike Combs described in one of his stories, "The Bridge To Space". Of course, that described a mass driver launcher that could put small ships into orbit, rather than the two stage approach you mentioned.

Address is below:
http://members.aol.com/howiecombs/shortstories.htm

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

Matt

From: Omar E. Vega
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 1:10:23 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Crazy and very wild idea

Hi,

I was thinking and thinking again about the idea of using a mass
driver to launch spacecrafts from the earth to space. Yes, we find the
problem of air resistance that does not seem to have a solution. Now,
the idea to put a mass driver at the top of the Andes does not seem to
be very practical either. After all, you'll hardly find a right place
in the Andes to put it, and then you just will have won 6 kilometers
of altitude (if one is lucky). Remember, we need a 3 kms. launcher to
make a spacecrafts at Mach 2, the speed enough for a scramjet to fire
and send the ship at Mach 25 out to orbit.

Then this crazy idea came to my mind. I can even sleep. lol.

Isn't posible to make a flying structure 3 km long from where to
launch the spacecrafts? Yes, that's a huge structure to fly, and the
largers planes are around 30 mts. long.

If so, that structure could be 8 kms. above the athmosphere and from
there the ride would be a lot easier.

Please, destroy this wild idea so I can sleep well.

Regards,

Omar Vega