Scrumples cheapskate heavy launch idea

[cronus]

Launch a low earth orbit rocket with a fast door and refuel it in flight using fuel contained in a specially shaped bag tethered to a high altitude balloon and fast magnets to catch the moment. Full orbit for little more than a low earth one. The bag of fuel would be long and tapered - the door maybe 10cm?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Better yet, just make spaceships out of helium!

[mistermack]

The highest road on Earth is the Mana Pass, on the India-Tibet border. It's somewhere near 20,000 feet up.
Find a place like that, where you could get big machinery to a very high altitude.
Then drill a vertical shaft down into the Earth. Line the shaft with electromagnets and accelerate the rocket from as deep as you can, using local hydro-electricity.
The rocket gets launched to 20,000 feet, at very high exit velocity, without using any of it's rocket fuel.
Then, when it's clear, start the rocket motor, and go the rest of the way with the rocket fuel.

As much of the fuel to get into orbit normally is needed for takeoff, and initial acceleration, and the air drag getting to 20,000 feet, this would mean that you would need much less fuel on the rocket, so it would be cheaper, and you could carry much more payload on far smaller rockets.

[Tyrannical]

Launch a low earth orbit rocket with a fast door and refuel it in flight using fuel contained in a specially shaped bag tethered to a high altitude balloon and fast magnets to catch the moment. Full orbit for little more than a low earth one. The bag of fuel would be long and tapered - the door maybe 10cm?

Interesting, but I don't know if that would be viable

With in air refueling, the tanker and the plane refueling travel at the same speed. I'm not sure that is possible with a rocket and fuel blimp. The rocket couldn't just pick up the fuel bag because the speed differences would tear them apart. Then there is the huge flames from the rocket engine which could destroy the dirigible and damage the rocket.

[cronus]

The whole thing depends on a elongated sleeve of fuel that could be tested easily but I've no doubt it is radical fix for the gravity well problem. And the same thing could lower the cost of ordinary air travel - and keep the show on the road another fifty years or more. Long enough to reach full global civilization - Kardashev scale 1. No ones thought this one up elsewhere and that is why the tiger I describe doesn't fit in with your schema. Google around and you'll find nothing on this idea.