A BALLOON FOR SPACE TRAVEL
A SPACE VEHICLE FOR BOTH MANNED AND UNMANNED SPACE TRAVEL Ian MacDougall A possible future for space exploration and journeys. I assume here that there will be future scientific and economic reasons for travel to become routine between the Earth and the Moon and International Space Station; perhaps also to Mars, hardly likely at all to Venus and Mercury, and very little by comparison to the outer planets, though their moons may be a different story. Travel beyond the solar system for crewed space vehicles is highly improbable IMHO, and even within the solar system would appear to present enormous logistical, support and supply problems. Ever since Yuri Gagarin’s first 1961 manned spaceflight, the only way to access space anyone appears to have considered has been via expensive, multi-stage, powerful and single-use rockets. What is proposed below is