Rockets consume a lot of fuel and carry not eough payload. To reduce the fuel needed, why not send it in the mesosphere?
Imagine a big balloon, capable of carrying a small rocket to the mesosphere (or at least stratopause) where about 99.9% of the air is located under, so basically, its almost a vacuum.
We would drastically reduce air friction: the rocket would be smaller.
How big would the ballon need to be (we could reuse it)?
For 5 tons of payload, how much of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen would we need (as rocket fuel)? How about for 10 tons of payload?
Thank you for your help.