02. Is there any other way to get there besides spaceships? Would we take a rocket ship, or would we take some other kind of transportation that scientists and engineers are creating? (A K2S Question)

From The Space Library

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Revision as of 17:47, 11 June 2014

In perhaps 15 to 20 years, airplanes may be developed that include enough rocket power to reach 17,500 mph. Then we will be able to take off normally from an airport, fly to several miles altitude, and then fire rockets to accelerate to orbital speed. Engineers also have proposed a space elevator that would hang a cable from orbit down to a location on the Earth's equator. This will require a very strong new material for the cable, and many billions of dollars to launch cable parts into orbit where construction would start.

Answer provided by David Gump & Gary Hudson

Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer