project) or use an airship or balloons to lift it aloft.

how big is this balloon?
thie size of texas?

I was thinking of something about the size of the Hindenburg. Airships can
carry quite a high payload and hybrid craft even more. The shuttle is of
course already transported around on the back of a specially converted 747.

what is the payload of an airship compared to a 747?
do you have any idea?!

  Using a high altitude release would

enable the shuttle to dive a couple of thousand feet before firing
rockets once at an upward trajectory this would give enourmous added
momentum and totally  dispense with the need to tie it to a bomb full

of highly explosive

fuel

your rockets don't need fuel?

Yes but you would need less fuel than for a ground launch

look below.
IOW...CRAP
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During development, it was found that the comparatively heavy rear-mounted engine moved the center of mass of the vehicle rearwards. This meant that the vehicle had to be designed to push the center of drag as far rearward as possible to ensure stability over the entire flight regime. Redesign of the vehicle to do this cost a significant proportion of the payload, and made the economics unclear.

In 1988 the Conservative government withdrew further funding, the project was approaching the end of its design phase but the plans were still speculative and dogged with aerodynamic problems and operational disadvantages.

A cheaper redesign, Interim HOTOL or HOTOL 2, to be launched from the back of an Antonov An-225 transport aircraft, was offered by BAE in 1991 but that too was rejected.

Alan Bond has formed Reaction Engines Limited where they have since been working on the Skylon vehicle which seems to avoid many of the problems of HOTOL.

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