EEOS

Efficient Earth to Orbit System (EEOS) could be a helium based craft that floats to a high altitude, if need be assisted by a small chemical propulsion pack where it docks with a space tether that could be built with existing materials and is pulled to geostationary orbit. It would have to be geostationary orbit so the tether would remain “still” to the perspective of the craft so it would not have to match the tether’s speed when docking. When it is time to descend back to Earth, the craft could be lowered by the space tether. The need for heat shielding would be minimal or none based on the fact that craft would not have high friction encounters with the atmosphere due to never having to achieve such speeds in the atmosphere. Initially, to launch the tether, the craft could be carried to LEO with auxiliary chemical boosters where it could release the tether station which would be remotely flown to and established in geostationary orbit.

For a stopgap solution to wireless power transmission to the Earth, orbiting stations could send focused laser beams to efficient photovoltaic cells spread out on a large section of the equator where there would be little weather phenomena to disturb the beam. The electricity could then be distributed by conventional means, perhaps even “piggybacking” on the global PRT network.