Political Crossfire Forums

well they are essentially a capsule sitting on a giant flaming container of rocket fuel

hmmm there's gotta be a better way

Not even a capsule. This was just a test platform. Apparently it was a new variant with 3 engines running instead of one, trying to hover and vertically land again, and something went sideways. Looks like there was a flameout and the rocket automatically blew itself up. Safety feature.

maybe some day something like this will be developed put to practical usage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionocraft

this looks cool:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingless_E ... ir_Vehicle

better article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... g-saucer/#

no moving parts

The future of getting off the planet is spacecraft that never leave space. Eventually well get people into space with an elevator or a kinetic launcher.

perhaps even in combination with LTA technology, as a hybrid lifter