Zepbaloon a gentle trip into space and back

Hank’s space fantasy

Hi My name is Hank Oswald.
I’m a retired software person.

I love technology. And I like technological fantasies. I’d like to share one with you now.

This is a fantasy I call “ZEPBALLOON”. I would like to go into outer space,
but I don’t want to go on top of a 10 story vehicle filled with explosive material.
It must be a hell of a ride, but
Things can go wrong.
And I’m not in such a hurry.

Let’s board my lighter than air ship. Zeppelins can reach an altitude of about 10,000 feet. Then the lifting gas expands under lower air pressure and threatens to burst the helium gas cells.
Here we deploy Balloons actually Tetroons. These weather balloons regularly achieve heights of 100,000 feet and higher.

At this point we are above 98% of the atmosphere and we fire our rockets to head for earth orbit. At the same time we start a bank of sterling cycle engines to liquefy the helium, we will want it again after reentry.

Now we fire our main rockets to boost the Zeppelin to earth orbit. As we’re accelerating we continue to liquefy our helium and reel in our Tetroons.

Since our Zeppelin is large and roomy we can spend a few days in orbit and maybe visit the International Space Station. Maybe have lunch.

When it comes time to return we fire retro rockets, but only to allow a glancing approach to the atmosphere. We now behave like a skipping pebble on smooth water, bouncing on the outer layer of atmosphere until enough energy has been lost to begin to fall toward earth. Now we redeploy the tetroons and gently return from our vacation in space.

The point here is: we have plenty of time, we don’t have to race into orbit on top of a rocket, and we don’t have hurry to land going through a fiery reentry. If it takes fifty or a hundred skips at the top of the atmosphere, so be it.