up, up and away in my beautiful balloon
In floating to space, Jeff Foust talks with John Powell of JP Aerospace. JP has one of the most interesting and innovative concepts for getting into orbit to come along in a long time. It is a three stage system: a V shaped balloon that brings payload from the ground to 42km up, a floating way station 3km across at that altitude, and 2km long V shaped balloon equipped with ion engines to make the five day trip to orbital altitude and velocity.
Where using a rocket is like jumping stright up ten feet, the JP concept is like taking the stairs, breaking the trip down into managable, low cost chunks.
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