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Calif Bill[_2_]

"H K" wrote in message
...
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.

We have been broadcasting into space for a lot of years. Ever since
Marconi.