[I am re-posting this musing here, as it was starting to get very far afield of the original message thread it was in...]
In the other thread, we were discussing whether Virgin Galactic's "Spaceship 2" is really a spaceship because it does not seem to ever get to the "Karman line" that most experts agree is where Earth's atmosphere ends and "space" begins.
While I admit that some might just dismiss Spaceship 2 as just a really high flying "rocket plane", still, I like the idea of the air-launched "spaceship", a la "Spaceship 2" and the old, venerable, X-15 rocket plane.
It seems to make sense: You make a really big, high-flying, but still air-breathing aircraft. Then you launch or drop a rocket powered "spaceship" from the aircraft. Maybe the spaceship is both "scramjet" and "rocket" craft, or some sort of hybrid. Wouldn't that be the most economical, most elegant way to get into space? Here we are in 2021, 60 years after Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, and we are still, basically, doing this the same way: We point a large, chemically fueled rocket at the sky and then we light that roman candle. Then the rocket goes (essentially) straight up, vertically, against the gravity well of Earth, expending enormous amounts of fuel in the process. Ultimately, a fairly small payload on the top of the rocket gets into space.
I love rockets! I am a BAR model rocketeer. But as a space enthusiast, I think we ("we" being humanity) need a more elegant way to get into space. Space elevator? Some sort of rail gun that magnetically hurls a payload into space? An air-launched spaceship? A horizontal take off craft that begins as an air-breathing jet airplane, turns into some sort of hybrid jet/rocket craft at some point, and then finally becomes a pure rocket craft that enters space?
In the other thread, we were discussing whether Virgin Galactic's "Spaceship 2" is really a spaceship because it does not seem to ever get to the "Karman line" that most experts agree is where Earth's atmosphere ends and "space" begins.
While I admit that some might just dismiss Spaceship 2 as just a really high flying "rocket plane", still, I like the idea of the air-launched "spaceship", a la "Spaceship 2" and the old, venerable, X-15 rocket plane.
It seems to make sense: You make a really big, high-flying, but still air-breathing aircraft. Then you launch or drop a rocket powered "spaceship" from the aircraft. Maybe the spaceship is both "scramjet" and "rocket" craft, or some sort of hybrid. Wouldn't that be the most economical, most elegant way to get into space? Here we are in 2021, 60 years after Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, and we are still, basically, doing this the same way: We point a large, chemically fueled rocket at the sky and then we light that roman candle. Then the rocket goes (essentially) straight up, vertically, against the gravity well of Earth, expending enormous amounts of fuel in the process. Ultimately, a fairly small payload on the top of the rocket gets into space.
I love rockets! I am a BAR model rocketeer. But as a space enthusiast, I think we ("we" being humanity) need a more elegant way to get into space. Space elevator? Some sort of rail gun that magnetically hurls a payload into space? An air-launched spaceship? A horizontal take off craft that begins as an air-breathing jet airplane, turns into some sort of hybrid jet/rocket craft at some point, and then finally becomes a pure rocket craft that enters space?
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