quote: Physics dictates that because of Earth gravity, a large portion of your fuel will have to be allocated in the effort to reach escape velocity. There's just no way around this.
quote: Sure you could build a space elevator. But I would be remiss to call it "cost effective", since constructing it would equal the cost of every space launch ever done in the history of mankind and then some.
quote: Just about everything you've said is completely wrong, and the irony of starting by saying "physics fail" just beggars belief.
quote: Then the Soviets launched Sputnik. We needed to put something into space too ASAP, the cost didn't matter. This eventually led to huge amounts of research dollars and time being invested in an ultimately inefficient method of putting things into space.
quote: The Space Shuttle has to come in at a pretty shallow angle when it reenters the atmosphere so it can bleed off speed before it hits the denser air. Otherwise it would burn up.