Originally Posted By: paul
I know its not very complicated but in my opinion a lighter than
air platform would be much better.

I've sometimes wondered that too. Though it wouldn't get very high (40km compared to 200km for ISS).

Perhaps the cost of such a monstrous balloon would actually be more than a rocket.

Another issue would be how do you keep it from flying away when the rocket leaves the balloon? Compress the gas into cylinders? The weight of those cylinders would be significant.

Maybe carbon nanotubes will save the day :P I heard somewhere of the possibility of building a rigid vacuum-filed balloon with them.

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plus we shouldn't pile all the responsibility of
payload duties on the russian's either.

What if it's the Russians who do it?