Re this type of large blimp (airship) - https://uk.news.yahoo.com/worlds-longest-aircraft-airlander-10-leaves-114042130.html
Say you tied a (small) rocket to it, and say went up to the edge of the atmosphere (60 miles?) - then simply dropped the rocket (it would quickly reach about 600 mph?)
Then (firing up the engines on reaching Terminal Velocity) guide the rocket out to miss the ground, so that it then enters space on the way `down' (if you know what I mean)
i.e. you'd get a "free" 600 mph blast to get the rocket into space easier than if simply launched it from the ground.
That wouldn't work for some practical reason though - right?
(The curvature of the Earth from just 60 just miles up provides too acute an angle to guide it past the ground on the way down? Or is 600 mph no real use minus the escape velocity of a ground launch anyway?)
Say you tied a (small) rocket to it, and say went up to the edge of the atmosphere (60 miles?) - then simply dropped the rocket (it would quickly reach about 600 mph?)
Then (firing up the engines on reaching Terminal Velocity) guide the rocket out to miss the ground, so that it then enters space on the way `down' (if you know what I mean)
i.e. you'd get a "free" 600 mph blast to get the rocket into space easier than if simply launched it from the ground.
That wouldn't work for some practical reason though - right?
(The curvature of the Earth from just 60 just miles up provides too acute an angle to guide it past the ground on the way down? Or is 600 mph no real use minus the escape velocity of a ground launch anyway?)