and they do make pressure vessels that resemble ballons.
so the balloon can be adjusted in size as it moves further upwards and gas can also be pumped in to give more lift as required.
this way the platform could achieve a higher altitude than the 51 k ft record.
Huh? How does compressing the gas help altitude?
it wouldn't help altitude , you would only compress the gas back into the pressure vessels when you want the balloon to descend.
todays high altitude balloons expand as they rise , and when they expand they are expanding because the gas inside the balloon is expanding , because the pressure outside the balloon is decreasing.
I said that the balloons could be adjusted as needed as far as size is concerned.
the bigger the balloon gets the more altitude you can get from the balloon because the increased surface area of the balloon can allow the lower pressure outside the balloon to lift it higher.
so to achieve higher altitude you must allow more compressed gas to enter the balloon so that the balloon size can increase.
think of a balloon who's skin is made up of thousands of long skinny balloons.
you allow gas to fill these long skinny balloons and they each become huge balloons that add lift.
mostly these days I think they just fill a weather balloon to a 10-20% capacity and allow the balloon to rise until the balloon burst due to the stresses placed on the balloon by the expanding gas inside the balloon and the ever decreasing pressures outside the balloon as the balloon rises.
if you can get the balloon through the mesosphere and you can charge the gas inside the balloon opposite the ion charges in the thermosphere then the opposite charges might attract the balloon to lift the balloon even higher.
and if that works then you should be able to achieve a type of buoyancy inside the thermosphere using electric charge.
so you would have to be carefull how much of a charge you add because it could be lifted to the exosphere 600 km up.
and once you reach ISS altitude you could use ion engines like the lifters you see on you tube to maneuver
around to the ISS.
so no fuel would be expended in the entire operation.
it would be completely re-usable , and it might even be safer.
Yes, so you don't need to be concerned with which country is doing things in space.
sure you need to be concerned , and air superiority is
usually the first goal in a conflict.
and air superiority should override political stupidity
even if it means that the stupid politicians supporters don't make as much money as they would like.
