From: foo@bar.baz.invalid.retro.com
richie086 wrote:
> would the use of balloons to lift some sort of delivery vehicle or
> rocket into the very upper atmosphere work? has this ever been
> attempted?
I don't know if it has been attemted yet or not, but within a month or
so, the da Vinci project X-prize team will be trying just that.
> What got me thinking about this was a show about a US Air Force
> captain (joke kittenger) back in 1960, riding a balloon up to
> 100,000 feet and then jumping off of the platform he was sitting on.
> I understand he was wearing a space suit and you would very easily
> die if exposed at such elevations. After seeing the movie that was
> taken from a film camera attached to him somehow, it's very obvious
> that he was at the very edge of space. Isn't half the cost of
> putting the space shuttle up or any rocket into orbit due to how
> much the fuel costs?
> I'm sure this has been thought of, it's just a question I've always
> wondered about and the people here seem a lot more willing to answer
> questions rather than on some other groups where everyone is too
> busy flaming everyone else rather than helping others :)
Look at the size of the balloon and then guesstimate the mass of what
it carried to 100,000 feet. There might even be exact figures on
the web somewhere. Then extrapolate. I suspect a _very_ large
balloon results. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the da
Vinci folks were going to be using the world's largest (to date)
helium ballon for their rather small sub-orbital vehicle.
rick jones
--
firebug n, the idiot who tosses a lit cigarette out his car window
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to raj in cup.hp.com but NOT BOTH...
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