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The process of doing Post Repair brings "ancient" authors into focus ...
Here is one of many posts by C M Edwards ...
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 067#p39067
This one caught my eye because it is a thoughtful analysis of the prospects for JP Aerospace and their vision of flying a balloon all the way to orbit.
That achievement remains elusive, 18+ years later, but the analysis looks about right (to me at least).
The basic proposition is that thrust can exceed drag for the days that would be needed to claw all the way up to LEO. A lot has happened in the field of electric propulsion in 18 years. It occurs to me (as I type this) that the current work of kbd512 (in his alternate Large Ship track) has some similarities to the JP Aerospace concept.
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This next section is just "thinking out loud" .... if the lift mass of the JP Aerospace vehicle is hydrogen, and if the hydrogen is drawn off as propellant for an electric thruster that receives power from an external source, then (conceivably) the envelope of the vehicle could be reconfigured in flight to become more and more streamlined, until it reaches orbit with hydrogen exhausted and the envelope fully retracted.
how useful that would be I have no idea, but at least it ** might ** set a Guiness Book of Records record of some kind.
(th)
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Here's a follow up post by a member from Germany ...
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 110#p39110
This member reports on study of a handout from JP Aerospace.
He (I assume a gent but don't actually know) also asserts that (in his opinion) an ion drive would not work because of the mass of the fuel. However, my interest here is whether hydrogen from the lift envelope might be drawn into an engine (of some kind) to provide thrust to accelerate from below LEO to LEO.
(th)
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