We desperately need some new ideas in aerospace. Here is one for an airship to orbit, that would use EHD thrusters to get to orbit electrically, maybe with energy beamed from the ground in microwaves:
It's all real and has been replicated numerous times. I think it's a shame that it's not covered in history books.
It would be straightforward to build a saucer or some other shape to get to the edge of space and then use conventional rockets to get to orbital speed. But research like that isn't funded for the same reason that green energy is barely funded - it's not sexy. There's little profit in it. And people with money just don't have the vision to pull it off. It breaks my heart that geeks are getting people to click ads or working as quants on wall street instead of picking the low lying fruit that could take us into the 21st century.
"It would be straightforward to build a saucer or some other shape to get to the edge of space and then use conventional rockets to get to orbital speed. But research like that isn't funded for the same reason that green energy is barely funded - it's not sexy."
The link wasn't to a 'green' energy site, 'over unity' is a perpetual motion machine web site. I believe simple ways to get into orbit are not funded for the same reason that perpetual motion machines aren't funded, because if they actually work there is a simple path to riches with zero dollars, thus there is no need for funding of working concepts.
The same is true for 'straightforward to the edge of space'. If you can combine free energy with easy access to high altitude you can put a cell phone repeater at 100,000' and sell phones with solid coverage in an 36 mile diameter circle for tons of money. Just putting a passive antenna up there that you could bounce UHF digital TV signals off of would get you tons of cash to fund even more 'unsexy' projects!
http://www.jpaerospace.com/
Here is more about the EHD effect and lifters, including the TT Brown effect:
http://jnaudin.free.fr/
It's all real and has been replicated numerous times. I think it's a shame that it's not covered in history books.
It would be straightforward to build a saucer or some other shape to get to the edge of space and then use conventional rockets to get to orbital speed. But research like that isn't funded for the same reason that green energy is barely funded - it's not sexy. There's little profit in it. And people with money just don't have the vision to pull it off. It breaks my heart that geeks are getting people to click ads or working as quants on wall street instead of picking the low lying fruit that could take us into the 21st century.