First it's a balloon, than it's a rocket and finally it becomes a gasstation in space or a towing satellite. EXPLAIN: A tetroon is a second generation tetrahedral shaped weatherballoon, which is cheaper and stronger than conventional shaped balloons. How does it look like? http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/MET/Faculty/businger/poster/balloon/ The best of balloons can climb to 50 km altitude before nature imposes restrictions, but why stop there? Suppose we have this large elongated tetroon like some spearhead or blocky rocketshape. Now this tetroon is filled with hydrogen to do the lifting job until 50 km. The tetroon carries a rocketengine at it's base, with a tank of liquid oxygen. From this point the hydrogen gas will be mixed with the liquid oxygen to provide thrust. The elongated tetrahedral shape is pretty aerodynamic and besides airdrag is much less of an issue at these altitudes (ever noticed how odd the apollo moonlanders looked, surely they would not last long in a dense atmosphere). Maybe a quarter of all the hydrogen gas in the tetroon is used to bring the teroon, rocketengine and some payload in low earth orbit and this is where the fun begins. Recap: with the relatively cheap cost of a single stage rocket we brought a large volume of usable hydrogen gas / strong carbon fibre (the hull of the tetroon) and additional payload in LEO. What can we do with that ??? - launching satellites in low-earth orbit cheaply, on top of that (with the remaining material): - Interplanetary Gasstation As payload we also lift a little converter factory, that cools the hydrogen and stores it as a liquid in tanks. Also the carbon sheet is stored (either grinded or folded) as valuable material Now I don't know if you have seen the movie Armageddon where Bruce Willis and his ruffnecks dock their spaceshuttles with an old russian spacestation to refuel, so that they can make a trip round the moon.... Now you get an idea of it's potential. Also the carbon can be taken to a moonkolony and used as building block for plastics, fertilizer and whatever fun you can have with organic chemicals.... another option we use the remains as a - MXE tether towing satellite http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/background/facts/momentum.pdf The hydrogen is reacted in a fuel cell with oxygen, creating water and electricity. The water serves initially as counterweight for the tether and can also be picked up by thursty space travellers and the electricity can be used in conjunction with the tether to provide towing capabillity, momentum exchange and electrodynamical orbit reboost. Now tell, how else do you get this much water, hydrogen, carbon and additional payload in space with just a single rocketstage???
