Stage Zero is a plane that utilizes the lifting power of air to reduce the fuel consumption. Additionally take off and landing of a plane is a mature and easy technology compared to a reusable liquid propulsion rocket stage. The plane should be able to lift a planetary rocket to an altitude of 50km or above. Therefore it's fuselage should be able to hold a Saturn V rocket. It's fuselage diameter would be 12 meters and length 140 meters. These dimensions allow space telescopes to be launched unfolded, large Space Station Modules and multiple satellite launch rockets to be carried at once. Maximum payload would be 3000 tones (Saturn V 2800 tones). A multiplane design would be ideal for such a plane. Multiple distributed wings allow even lifting and multiple rockets distribute the thrust evenly. Also multi wings increase the strength of the wings. The propulsion would be accomplished by solid rockets. Therefore the plane will not have fuel on its wings or fuselage. The rockets would be fired in succession to increase the specific impulse time. At its peak altitude Stage Zero will release the Space Rocket and will return to ground and land like a glider. Some rockets maybe reserved to be fired on landing. Space rocket or rockets will than fire their first stage. The advantage of this approach is to simplify the space rocket design. When launched at a very high altitude the rocket would experience much less air drag and would not require expensive heat shields. Also you can launch the rocket at way North, no need to approach the Equator. I also propose the Space Rocket to fully utilize solid rocket boosters. Therefore the rockets, including the plane can be launched in short notice. No need for expensive liquid rocket research and manufacturing needed. Liquid rocket designs slow down the advancements in space. Space Launch System (SLS) had so many delays and ate up a lot of budget and we are still waiting. Countries heavily invest in military and need to build as many missiles as possible when needed. When you establish high capacity fully automated solid rocket production infrastructure you can build rockets to launch your satellites frequently and if needed divert the production to produce missiles in mass. It would both decrease the military expenditure and lower the cost of space launch.
My Stage Zero and Solid Rocket approach is scalable. One can build a much smaller version of the plane and make improvements on the design before scaling up. This approach requires minimum new technology. The results can be seen within a year. Finally it would surpass all the liquid rocket alternatives within a couple of years.
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