Airship to Orbit Animation- JP Aerospace Youtube video

Here's the airship to orbit concept of JP Aerospace. The idea is to get as much altitude as possible out of the lifting gas, such as hydrogen. From that point on, the airship will rise based upon aerodynamic lift as it gains speed. But it will reach a limit to that and still not achieve orbit. From that point on, it must become like a rocket- with all of its thrust coming from onboard the craft.

I think this may work because he gets the most performance possible out of each component of his system. If he is right, he will be able to achieve orbit at a tiny fraction of current costs.

By the way, JP has been on the Space Show, maybe more than once. On one occasion, a caller named "Charles" really challenged him on at two points. The first was the amount of thrust needed and Charles thought that there is no way that he can achieve the needed thrust based upon solar power and batteries. The second challenge was the drag would be too great for an airship of such a large size. The airship JP envisions that will go to orbit will be over a mile long! How JP will overcome that problem is yet to be determined. He didn't say over the air.