I don't think SpaceX will do this. But there are other lines of development that could make it possible. Can't say for sure. But some of them seem promising enough. Skylon particularly - within a decade or two we might have the equivalent of airplanes flying into space using their technology. That could be a start of a new era in space flight, as groundbreaking, perhaps, as the invention of the jet aircraft for ordinary planes.
This is a UK project, called Skylon, a jet that can fly directly to orbit. It would launch from an ordinary runway - like an airplane - the runway needs to be strengthened but is otherwise normal. And it doesn't need booster rockets at all, it carries all its fuel on board.
Artist's concept of it taking off into orbit
It burns a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, but in the early stages it gets the oxygen from the atmosphere. It does that by a remarkable system that cools down the incoming air by 140C in a hundredth of a second, so can take in the air and still use lightweight materials.
It has a massive reduction of fuel needs because it is air breathing in the early stages of its flight.
This is under active development right now, they are working slowly but steadily towards their goals. So one day it might happen.
A balloon filled with hydrogen or helium could rise almost indefinitely - if the skin is light enough, even close to the boundaries of low Earth orbit.
This is a very low cost method because no fuel needs to be expended to do the lifting itself.
JP Aerospace plan to make airships that would rise to orbital platforms at 200,000 feet - so that's 60 km, in the mesosphere - above the stratosphere, near vacuum conditions.
They have the current altitude record for an airship for an unmanned but manoeuvrable airship of 95,085 feet, or 29 km
JP Aerospace Airship Flies to the Edge of Space, Smashing the Existing World Altitude Record
The maximum height achieved with any ground launched balloon so far is 56 km with a NASA experiment Bu60-1
These would be truly orbital airships - slowly accelerating to Mach 20 and greater.
When they set off from their base station at 200,000 feet (60 kms), they would be just floating. It's almost a vacuum inside the ship, yet still, because it is filled with hydrogen or helium, contained by the skin, then the lighter atoms of hydrogen or helium will float on the denser almost vacuum of oxygen / nitrogen outside it.
LEO starts at around 160 km Low Earth orbit
They would accelerate to orbit slowly over several days, by using ion thrusters. First they use a combination of lift and velocity - and eventually travel at orbital velocity at levels too high to get noticeable lift.
This idea of Mach 20+ airships accelerating to reach orbital velocity may seem absurd at first, it did to me when I first read it. But the more you think about it, the more it begins to make sense.
The air is so thin at those altitudes, the balloons would hardly notice this.
We launched several balloons to LEO in the Echo program, so there is no problem with balloons once they reach LEO. The problem is the transition between high altitude and LEO. For that, we want to find out about suborbital balloon flights. Those are rare.
An early experiment sent one of these balloons into a sub orbital hop which it survived for most of the hop and disintegrated eventually. When it did explode, this was mainly because they made a mistake and left too much gas in it.
That isn't much by way of experimental data, as this seems to be the only example of a suborbital balloon flight to date. Also that's with a small balloon not the huge kilometer scale airships of JP Aerospace.
Still, what data there is, is reasonably promising that the high speeds of the balloons won't be a problem so long as they are well above most of the atmosphere in close to LEO vacuum conditions by the time they approach orbital velocities. At any rate, JP Aerospace don't consider this to be their main challenge.
You can hear John Powell, the man himself talk about it in a recent Spaceshow talk, and decide for yourself.
They have a very interesting philosophy also, it's a company that does its development in the slow lane. They've been working towards this for decades and finance their development by the discoveries they make along the way.
Find out more here: Guest: John Powell. Topics: Updates on JP Aerospace and the Airship To Orbit program.
There are various ideas for ways to, basically, drive most of the way to orbital speed on a Maglev track.
A Maglev train is a natural for acceleration to super fast speeds of kilometers per second - as it has no on board fuel, gets all its energy from the track so no need to accelerate the fuel. And also as there is no physical contact with the track, friction can be almost zero.
First, there's the idea of some researchers for a long MagLev track which accelerates a spaceship inside an evacuated track up the side of a mountain, continuously until it reaches orbital velocities when it leaves the tube. They think this could cost $20 billion to build and it would cost about $50 per kilogram to get cargo into orbit, and the project would take about ten years to complete. For details see Maglev track could launch spacecraft into orbit.
That's for cargo.
You could send passengers too, but would need a longer railway line, and slower accelerations, would take longer to build and cost more. Your "track" may have to go up into the sky like this:
The loop continually moves around like a moving walk way from one end station to the other and back again. The loop is elevated away from the Earth by the centrifugal effect of the moving walkway. This centrifugal effect raises the centre portion of the track to about 80 km. Then, much as before, the vehicles accelerate along the track until they reach orbital velocity, and release themselves from the track to launch into orbit,
See Launch Loop (wikipedia)
A surprising thing about these dynamic structures held up purely by kinetic energy of rapidly moving liquid or particles - there is so much energy in the system, and so little loss, that if you stop supplying energy, they lose it only gradually. It's rather like energy stored in a flywheel or a gyroscope. Stop supplying energy and the flywheel keeps spinning, it doesn't just stop instantly. They deserve close attention, and are not as way out and crazy as you might think when you first encounter them.
For other ideas like this, see the Dynamic Structures section in Wikipedia.
There are several other ideas like this, that might or might not happen in the future
I think there are also issues involved, if it gets as easy to fly into space as it is to fly to another continent. Are we ready for that future?
If it happened right now, I think the answer is no. Many things probably have to change before we can be safe, and the economy work okay, and not have wars in space, in a world where it is easy for anyone to travel into space as easily as they can fly to another continent.
And with such power available to almost anyone, world wide, we could also mess up the solar system in a big way - for that matter also mess up the Earth too. If you put the modern jet plane back into the world of say WWI, give jet fighters and jet airplanes to all the countries involved, the result would be total chaos.
But we have managed to adapt to relatively easy intercontinental travel, I think we will adapt to easy space travel also, so long as the transition isn't too fast.
So - though naturally frustrating for space enthusiasts, I think myself that it might really be for the good, that these projects need a long lead time of at least some decades. Maybe by the time they become possible, and then prices are reduced, we will be better able to deal with the consequences.
Look at it in more detail here:
Projects To Get To Space As Easily As We Cross Oceans - A Million Flights A Year Perhaps - Will We Be Ready?
(this answer consists mainly of a few extracts from that longer article I wrote)
FLYING DIRECTLY TO ORBIT
This is a UK project, called Skylon, a jet that can fly directly to orbit. It would launch from an ordinary runway - like an airplane - the runway needs to be strengthened but is otherwise normal. And it doesn't need booster rockets at all, it carries all its fuel on board.
It burns a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, but in the early stages it gets the oxygen from the atmosphere. It does that by a remarkable system that cools down the incoming air by 140C in a hundredth of a second, so can take in the air and still use lightweight materials.
It has a massive reduction of fuel needs because it is air breathing in the early stages of its flight.
This is under active development right now, they are working slowly but steadily towards their goals. So one day it might happen.
AIRSHIPS TO ORBIT
A balloon filled with hydrogen or helium could rise almost indefinitely - if the skin is light enough, even close to the boundaries of low Earth orbit.
This is a very low cost method because no fuel needs to be expended to do the lifting itself.
JP Aerospace plan to make airships that would rise to orbital platforms at 200,000 feet - so that's 60 km, in the mesosphere - above the stratosphere, near vacuum conditions.
They have the current altitude record for an airship for an unmanned but manoeuvrable airship of 95,085 feet, or 29 km
The maximum height achieved with any ground launched balloon so far is 56 km with a NASA experiment Bu60-1
This is the highest flying balloon ever at 56 km, on the edge of space
ISAS | BALLOONS:Research on Balloons to Float Over 50km Altitude / Special Feature
JP Aerospace plan to build airships that set off at a level higher than the highest flying balloon ever - huge airships made of such light materials that they couldn't be inflated at ground level.
These would be truly orbital airships - slowly accelerating to Mach 20 and greater.
When they set off from their base station at 200,000 feet (60 kms), they would be just floating. It's almost a vacuum inside the ship, yet still, because it is filled with hydrogen or helium, contained by the skin, then the lighter atoms of hydrogen or helium will float on the denser almost vacuum of oxygen / nitrogen outside it.
LEO starts at around 160 km Low Earth orbit
They would accelerate to orbit slowly over several days, by using ion thrusters. First they use a combination of lift and velocity - and eventually travel at orbital velocity at levels too high to get noticeable lift.
This idea of Mach 20+ airships accelerating to reach orbital velocity may seem absurd at first, it did to me when I first read it. But the more you think about it, the more it begins to make sense.
The air is so thin at those altitudes, the balloons would hardly notice this.
We launched several balloons to LEO in the Echo program, so there is no problem with balloons once they reach LEO. The problem is the transition between high altitude and LEO. For that, we want to find out about suborbital balloon flights. Those are rare.
An early experiment sent one of these balloons into a sub orbital hop which it survived for most of the hop and disintegrated eventually. When it did explode, this was mainly because they made a mistake and left too much gas in it.
That isn't much by way of experimental data, as this seems to be the only example of a suborbital balloon flight to date. Also that's with a small balloon not the huge kilometer scale airships of JP Aerospace.
Still, what data there is, is reasonably promising that the high speeds of the balloons won't be a problem so long as they are well above most of the atmosphere in close to LEO vacuum conditions by the time they approach orbital velocities. At any rate, JP Aerospace don't consider this to be their main challenge.
You can hear John Powell, the man himself talk about it in a recent Spaceshow talk, and decide for yourself.
They have a very interesting philosophy also, it's a company that does its development in the slow lane. They've been working towards this for decades and finance their development by the discoveries they make along the way.
Find out more here: Guest: John Powell. Topics: Updates on JP Aerospace and the Airship To Orbit program.
LAUNCH LOOP OR MAGLEV TRACK TO ORBIT
There are various ideas for ways to, basically, drive most of the way to orbital speed on a Maglev track.
A Maglev train is a natural for acceleration to super fast speeds of kilometers per second - as it has no on board fuel, gets all its energy from the track so no need to accelerate the fuel. And also as there is no physical contact with the track, friction can be almost zero.
First, there's the idea of some researchers for a long MagLev track which accelerates a spaceship inside an evacuated track up the side of a mountain, continuously until it reaches orbital velocities when it leaves the tube. They think this could cost $20 billion to build and it would cost about $50 per kilogram to get cargo into orbit, and the project would take about ten years to complete. For details see Maglev track could launch spacecraft into orbit.
That's for cargo.
You could send passengers too, but would need a longer railway line, and slower accelerations, would take longer to build and cost more. Your "track" may have to go up into the sky like this:
Maglev track could launch spacecraft into orbit.
This track is magnetically elevated.
Then, more exotic, is the idea of a kind of "moving walkway" Maglev track, that elevates into the sky under centrifugal force". There are many ideas like this, but this is one of the simplest and most practical of them.
The loop continually moves around like a moving walk way from one end station to the other and back again. The loop is elevated away from the Earth by the centrifugal effect of the moving walkway. This centrifugal effect raises the centre portion of the track to about 80 km. Then, much as before, the vehicles accelerate along the track until they reach orbital velocity, and release themselves from the track to launch into orbit,
See Launch Loop (wikipedia)
A surprising thing about these dynamic structures held up purely by kinetic energy of rapidly moving liquid or particles - there is so much energy in the system, and so little loss, that if you stop supplying energy, they lose it only gradually. It's rather like energy stored in a flywheel or a gyroscope. Stop supplying energy and the flywheel keeps spinning, it doesn't just stop instantly. They deserve close attention, and are not as way out and crazy as you might think when you first encounter them.
For other ideas like this, see the Dynamic Structures section in Wikipedia.
There are several other ideas like this, that might or might not happen in the future
I think there are also issues involved, if it gets as easy to fly into space as it is to fly to another continent. Are we ready for that future?
If it happened right now, I think the answer is no. Many things probably have to change before we can be safe, and the economy work okay, and not have wars in space, in a world where it is easy for anyone to travel into space as easily as they can fly to another continent.
And with such power available to almost anyone, world wide, we could also mess up the solar system in a big way - for that matter also mess up the Earth too. If you put the modern jet plane back into the world of say WWI, give jet fighters and jet airplanes to all the countries involved, the result would be total chaos.
But we have managed to adapt to relatively easy intercontinental travel, I think we will adapt to easy space travel also, so long as the transition isn't too fast.
So - though naturally frustrating for space enthusiasts, I think myself that it might really be for the good, that these projects need a long lead time of at least some decades. Maybe by the time they become possible, and then prices are reduced, we will be better able to deal with the consequences.
Look at it in more detail here:
Projects To Get To Space As Easily As We Cross Oceans - A Million Flights A Year Perhaps - Will We Be Ready?
(this answer consists mainly of a few extracts from that longer article I wrote)
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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