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Diligent_Percentage8 OP t1_iv1mhw4 wrote

Reply to comment by electric_ionland in Why don’t we use balloons to reduce initial takeoff weight for spaceships? by Diligent_Percentage8

So it would be minutely more efficient at getting larger payloads up, but is not currently cost effective basically?

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electric_ionland t1_iv1n7da wrote

Define "more efficient"? You would need to build new storage system for the lifting gas and add a lot of systems to manage it. On the other end you can just make the existing tanks slightly bigger and put a bit more fuel in them...

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Diligent_Percentage8 OP t1_iv1pbwr wrote

Efficient as in reducing the overall weight of a rocket to overcome materials physical limits. Am I wrong in thinking that bigger isn’t always better, the same way insects do not reciprocate the same damage as an elephant from falling from relative heights. I imagine though that the balloons, no matter the capacity of weight they would negate, would need to be detached within the first minute once the acceleration of the rocket out paced their natural lift. Again, minutely more efficient, but not worth the engineering/cost effectiveness.

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