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H K

wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:50:14 -0700, "Calif Bill"
wrote:

Build a shuttle, that is carried to 50k feet by a modified airplane
platform, and then launch from there. You will already have 500 mile per
hour speed, and be above 60% of the admosphere. Sure you have the wings,
but make the body a lifting body and most of the wing disappears. Use
rocket for the really large stuff, but the modified airplane / shuttle would
suffice for lots of the lift jobs and would require much less fuel. Not the
90% fuel as you already have some speed so less inertia and lots less air
resistance to overcome

They already did that. It was the X15

It would be a better investment to put a few spaceward-aimed broadcast
beacons in orbit, and hope that a friendly alien civilization hears
their signals and stops by with technology a few thousand years more
advanced than ours they are willing to share.