Deltoid Pumpkinseed II

Here is a possibility for bringing back the first stage of a rocket.  Since this "aerobody" could carry a large object, such as a rocket's first stage, it seemed like a plausible alternative.  Well, maybe it is plausible.

Anyway, the Deltoid Pumpkinseed, which I covered briefly here  back in April, is a type of hybrid aircraft. It combines the attributes of an airship with the attributes of an airplane.  The design was intended to carry huge amounts of cargo at an affordable price.  The concept was proven in a small prototype was flown about the time of the lunar landings during the Apollo project.  Obviously, it never caught on.

This idea would be to have an inflatable structure attached to the sides of the rocket.  Once the rocket is spent, the pumpkinseed would inflate, and bring the lower stage back to the launch site.

The pumpkinseed was a flyable design and it was proven.  The amount of weight would be no more than a mid-size Gulfsteam plane. Therefore, this pumpkinseed need not be as big as the one in the book pictured below:

It could be scalable to the size of the spent rocket.  Instead of propellers, it could use one or more of the rocket engines as propulsion.  It could not have a rigid body, of course.

The idea also occurred to me that it would take a lot of time to inflate a large structure.  Perhaps the air could be compressed and held until needed.  Once released, inflation would occur rapidly.

This idea may seem pretty cockeyed, but, who knows?  It may work.