If they were to use the same method that they are going to use to get to sub orbital at a 3,000 mph velocity, and then do the same type of skip on the atmosphere that was originally proposed by Eugene Sanger in Germany in the 1940's, they could take such a ship all the way across the US for not much more weight than the sub 0rbital ship itself.
How much weight of fuel is it then going to take to get a true hypersonic vehicle up to mach 10 or even above?
And then there is the ability of such an air breathing hypersonic jet to use the atmosphere itself as its own oxidizer at least, and this should reduce the amount of propellant needed by a long way for at least point to point hypersonic travel.
If this were not true, then why would both the US Military and NASA be so interested in such hypersonic methodologies?
Once you are up to about mach 10 to 15 with the hypersonic jet(s) then it should not take anywhere near the same weight of propellants to get the rest of the way up to orbital velocity. After all, just how much propellant is left in the main tank of the space shuttle by the time it gets up to mach 15?
I personally do not know, but somebody here probably does. I would bet that it is probably far less that even 10% of the starting weight on the launch pad.
So, and I say this respectfully to you. If such as Burt Rutan and Virgin Galactic that just broke ground on a new production facility of some 68,000 square feet out at the Mojave Airport to build some three carrier aircraft and some five launched vehicles for their sub orbital efforts, could not carry this even further, then I am certain that Rutan and company would know.
But they state that eventually they WILL have a true point to point hypersonic vehicle that would eventually also be capable for getting all the way up to LEO, and Rutan seems to have a way of doing what a lot of others originally consider impossible, so I will stick with my original statements here.
By the way there is a truly terrific book on the entire history of the space shuttle that is called:
"SPACE SHUTTLE
The History of the National Space Transportation System
The First 100 Missions
"
By Dennis R. Jenkins
It is available at a very reasonable price on amazon.
I highly recommend anybody that is interested in reusable to orbit craft such as the shuttle get it and read it.
This is where I learned that almost ALL of the early shuttle designs were indeed horizontal take off and landing two stage to orbit designs, somewhat similar to what Rutan and Virgin Galactic want to accomplish.
However, they have the advantages now of some 40 years of advancements in aerospace and other technologies, and they are attempting to do this in a manner that will free up space travel to LEO for literally thousands of relatively wealthy but otherwise ordinary people. And so they have to make it as inexpensive as possible because unlike NASA they MUST make an eventual profit or go under.
So, I would kind of bet that they can and will do it!!
![Big Grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)