The current method of getting payloads into space is to initiate a chemical burn-fueled rocket, which has enough thrust to escape the gravity of the Earth.
On the other hand, chemical burns have a lot of unwanted side effects; they pollute the environment, often come with unwanted risk of catastrophic explosions that can harm or kill anyone traveling into space, and are ridiculously expensive to fuel.
But what alternatives are there? - How about balloons - or more accurately named, rockoons?
Researchers have been using space balloons for decades, but it may finally be possible to utilize balloons to send rockets into space so that smaller rockets can take over the piloting from there. It would seem the technology is finally getting mature enough to perfect the process.
Rockoons are capable of sending heavy payloads into space, just like rockets do currently. They cheat gravitational physics by using lighter gasses to lift objects above our atmosphere, and once there, we've already used many times less rocket fuel than a chemical burn would have.
Move over SpaceX, rockoons might just be the way of the future for launching astronauts or satellites into space.
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MAR 21, 2017