Suggested: Perfect launch site, the US Capital building!
Fuel is abundant.
Interesting topic. Which brings us to
your Ear-Worm of the Day;
“99 Luftballons”, a song by Nena!
How about the top of Mt Everest or Mt McKinley? Or is that not enough to matter?
Interesting!
They stole my idea; I was talking about this 20 years ago.
Using balloons, instead of satellites, would work around the problem of the junk accumulating in low earth orbit. Maybe one day we won’t have a choice; it’s getting to be a terrible mess up there.
I remember when PM had great ideas.
Long gone.
How big of a hot air balloon do you need to lift a fully loaded and fueled rocket?
REALLY, really, really big.
NASA Glenn Research Center Balloon Mission Launch
The mission shown here was the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory (STO), launched on January 15, 2012 from Antarctica. It studied large dense molecular clouds in the southern sky of the Milky Way.
Lots of videos...satellite balloon launch
Crashes too...
Huge NASA Science Balloon Crashes in Australian Apr 30, 2010
Note the dates.
Pelosi is full of hot air.
Rockoons again? 1955 all over again...
I have always wondered about using balloons to clean up Mt. Everest.
how do you heat air at 100K ft?
Same idea with an airplane.
” As Stratolaunch Systems Corp. has rolled its super-massive aircraft out of the hangar during the last year and performed some ground-based tests, there has been one big unanswered question—what is the purpose of building the largest airplane in the world”
Isn’t there ENOUGH crap orbiting our planet already?
The balloons don’t get you to space. Lying headline.
“the expense of the balloon itself; helium is expensive”
Title says hot air balloons.
Mediots have even invaded Popullar Mechanics.
Technically, the first man into “space” went in a hot air balloon.
It’s an interesting concept, but regular rocket launches would deliver scores of these micro-satellites in a single launch. So the niche is even smaller — launching 1 or 2 micro-satellites in a single balloon sortie.
I also wonder exactly how you recover that balloon, re-manufacture it, and ready it for another launch. I would think that high-altitude weather balloons are single-use for this very reason. How do you get the darned things back?
The payload size would be limited since the rocket itself would be heavier than 55 pounds. Satellites do not go into orbit just because they reach the correct altitude. They must be going about 19,000 miles per hour at a tangent to the Earth. That requires a lot of rocket.