Blimps in space. No, not pigs, blimps.
MSNBC reports a California company with an alternate launch site in Texas , JP Aerospace , is on their third test article of a blimp system specifically designed to fly to space.
Blimps. To Space. At payload costs around a dollar a ton-mile to LEO . This compares rather favorably to NASA's $155,555 per ton-mile with the Shuttle.
Their concept, first unveiled at the Space Access '04 conference in Phoenix last month (with a blog report here , include the Ascender , a ground-to-near-space blimp, which docks to a helium-inflated two-mile-long station at the edge of space , over 20 miles up. Another ship , also a blimp but specifically designed to reach orbit, takes the payload from there to LEO, using well-proven electric propulsion (AKA ' ion drive ').
That trip to LEO would take up to nine days, but that's a good thing; for, what goes up fast, must come down fast, and speed is energy which must be bled off by either massive amounts of expensive and explosi