[amsat-bb] Re: Satellite Satire

[Tony Langdon]

At 11:57 AM 11/30/2011, Lowell White wrote:

>Please enlighten me if indeed there might be a way to get something up (and to
>stay up) more economically.

Well, a bit of physics here.  To get from the Earth's surface to LEO 
requires 10 km/S of delta-V.  Even if you could get a payload to 
orbital altitude by some hypothetical means, you would still need to 
add 7.5km/S delta-V to bring it up to orbital velocity.  From 30km 
(typical high altitude balloon), the requirement would be somewhere 
in between 7.5 and 10 km/S, which still means a considerable amount 
of fuel required.

>insertion? If the bird and booster weights were small enough, could a wx
>balloon lift them adequately?

I suspect the rocket would still be very heavy.

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