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We use the thermal lift above a volcano (Hawaii seems an
appropriate place to start from) to achieve altitude & from
there
use a booster rocket to push the vehicle into orbit.
Additional lift might be provided with a design that fills the
wings (etc) with Hydrogen.
We jettison the booster
when empty to parachute into the
ocean
for recovery & reuse.
The wings may either have an adjustable profile (perhaps an
articulated carbon fiber frame with hydrogen filled cells) & be
fully retracted during the second stage or else jettisoned
along
with the booster for recovery & reuse.
For reentry we use parachutes to slow it's descent, if we don't
use
the wing jettison design we can re-extend them in stages as
speed decreases until it's able to glide again & maybe add a
small
air
turbine for more control over your final landing point.
I see this more as for the space tourism market than any
serious
commercial use but I suppose if it is feasible (which I'm really
not sure about) it could be scaled up.
Skewed Co. invites you to spend the morning ascending over
Hawaii
& admiring the view in one of our new gliders & to then boost
into
low earth orbit to visit our new restaurant opened in
partnership
with McDonald's on the international space station where you
will have lunch & watch the planet spin below you, you'll be
back in time for a spot of
surfing at Waiamea Bay followed by a beach luau & dinner.
Disclaimer: All waivers & release
forms for any injury (up to & including death) must be signed
&
lodged with our lawyers before embarking, any
prior payments made for flights that you're
denied embarkation onto for not doing so are non-refundable.
There must be prior art on this but a brief (lazy) search of the
bakery & Google hasn't found it so I'm posting this anyway :)
Hawaii Glider Record Altitude
https://www.youtube...watch?v=IY--mA-Iico
[Skewed, Mar 21 2018]
David Bigelow-Fatal Altitude Record Flight
https://www.youtube...watch?v=XuIWBAPr4RI
[Skewed, Mar 21 2018]
Flying at 90,000 feet
https://www.youtube...watch?v=WwGqJTWXQns
[Skewed, Mar 21 2018]
Perlan 2 Glider Altitude Worldrecord
https://www.youtube...watch?v=N3ps80hfh2w
[Skewed, Mar 21 2018]
Glider Team Sets Altitude Record
http://www.bbc.co.u...technology-41172587
BBC 6 September 2017 [Skewed, Mar 22 2018]
Air Launch via Towed Glider
https://www.nasa.go...h-towed-glider.html
A proposed (?) cheaper method of inserting satellites into orbit from NASA [Skewed, Mar 22 2018]
Lava lyrics
https://www.youtube...watch?v=XwYgcbGZ91A
As hinted-at by an annotation. [Vernon, Mar 23 2018]
[link]
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There have been some proposals regarding energy
production, involving a tall tower heated by the sun, to
cause rising air. If that air was not passed through turbines,
bur merely allowed to climb, it could be a reasonable
substitute for the volcano in this Idea. |
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All that does is change a project with no infrastructure &
maintenance requirements any airport can't meet into one
you have to spend oodles of dollars on giant chimneys for. |
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One you could relocate anywhere (with a volcano or any
other
suitable updraft) you want at any time by just flying away
in
the gliders into one you can't move if you want to. |
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One with no detrimental effects to peoples homes, views &
the environment.. to one where you're dropping bloody big
giant chimneys all over the place. |
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A brief study of last quarters publicly
filed reports for Verns Amalgamated Industries shows heavy
investment in brick manufacture at a time when due to the
unexpected extinction of the Wiltshire Whistling Whelk new
clay fields have opened leading to a drop in brick prices. |
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Your desire to foist unwanted bricks on my innocent
little project now makes perfect sense, not cool Vern not
cool. |
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It's not extinct, it just learned some lyrics. |
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[Skewed], volcanoes don't exist everywhere. But a tall
tower as described in my other anno can be built almost
anywhere. Why should only countries that have volcanoes
get the easy space launch system you described? |
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Also, remember this is the HalfBakery. Excessively
technical notions are often encouraged here. (Oh, and by
the way, most of the tower I described needs to be glass,
not brick, to maximize warming of air by sunlight.) |
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//Excessively technical notions are often encouraged// |
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Really can't argue with that :) |
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I prefer natural updrafts
& thermals as I was looking for ways to minimize
infrastructure, costs & environmental impact, but that
aside.. |
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How big do you think such a chimney would need to be &
how
far above it might the air column retain some usable
integrity
do you think, would it even provide noticeably more lift
than
experienced above a large built up area? |
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//volcanoes don't exist everywhere// |
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Yes but they do in Hawaii & for various reasons unrelated to
the actual idea (sun, surfing, beaches.. girls in bikinis) I'd
prefer to have company HQ there. |
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//Why should only countries that have volcanoes get the
easy space launch system// |
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This may not work & premature jealousy is so
unbecoming in a country. |
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//It's not extinct, it just learned some lyrics// |
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You may have confused it with the Welsh Mumbling Whelk
(common throughout East Anglia but strangely enough not
Wales) which is indeed known to throw in the odd word. |
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M'Lud Buchanan has a breeding herd of them on one exceedingly damp and unpleasant corner of the family estates. They aren't Welsh whelks; he produces them as a foodstuff in case any indigent welsh nationals happen by. |
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Hence the "Welsh" refers to "for the welsh", not "from wales". |
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why are there no volcano power plants yet? Is it too powerful
to harness? |
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//why are there no volcano power plants yet?// |
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There are, Geothermal power is widely used in some
countries, visit Iceland sometime & have a look at
theirs. |
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