A cheap way, relatively cheap, is piggyback launch. An ordinary jetliner for first stage, the second stage the orbiter and return vehicle that lands on the same runway the jetliner took off from. The jetliner can also launch dumb cargo orbiters when it isn't necessary to have staff accompany the tonnage.
The manned orbiter needn't be huge like the Space Shuttle. It would carry just personnel. Their luggage would be on the freighters, probably launched first.
18 posted on 01/29/2003 9:10 AM PST by RightWhale
Piggy-back is okay, but I envision it taking an additional period of time to link up. Seems to me we should be looking for opimal design goals, not coming up with another half-measure to get us there in lieu of what we really want. I don't mean to put this down completely, because I recognize the theory is sound. In my opinion it's sortof like wanting to move from the Model-T to the Viper, but settling for the Edsel because we don't want to do the R&D necessary to do the full move. I think the SSTO is within our grasp if we dedicate ourselves to a full court press for a few years.
I am disappointed that we don't set lofty goals, then damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. Kennedy set a goal of landing on the moon by the end of the 60s. We did it. Here we're just talking about developing a new engine, the SSTO driver. The rest is gravy.
If we use the new drive system to place unmanned cargo ships in space, I'm okay with that. Some craft will have humans and some won't. Some will fill up with cargo and others will fill up with paying passengers.