Those of you old enough or literate enough to remember Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress will be familiar with the concept of a space catapult to inject objects into low earth orbit from both selected areas on Earth and the Moon. Mike Holmes and Manny Kelley worked out the logistics many years before NASA in conjunction with then Martin Marietta developed the now defunct X-20 Dyna-Soar , a precursor to the Space Shuttle, a program now on its last legs.
NASA is now actively engaged in renewed research into using a catapult that launches a wedge aircraft with scramjets on a gas powered sled. Landing would be on a runway much like the one the current shuttle uses. Currently in the research stage, it fills a void left by the demise of the shuttle program and fulfills the dream of Mycroft Holmes.
This is Dome sayin’: TANSTAFL!
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