Rockets are our only option of traveling or sending payload to space today. However, 10 unconventional ways could change that in the future. There are plans to develop alternative methods of travel, and they are truly weird.
10 Unconventional Ways to Reach Space Without Rockets
1 Space Fountain
Space fountains are considered an alternative to the space elevator. They have the ground and space stations but without the elevators. The idea was promoted by a six-man team including Robert L. Forward, who explained the idea in his book Indistinguishable from Magic.
The proposed invention is called a space fountain because it works like a water fountain. A ball could remain atop the water from a water fountain if the force of the water remains constant. At the same time, the water that falls back into the fountain is reused to keep the ball up. And the process continues.
The ground station of a space fountain is a sort of U-shaped chamber while the space station is an upside-down, U-shaped chamber. Using the logic of the ball we just mentioned, the space station remains in space because the ground station shoots millions of small magnetic pellets at it. The space station shoots the pellets back to the ground station, and the cycle goes on.
However, the walls of the ground chamber would be lined with electromagnetic accelerators that would fire any payload into space. The space fountain remains unfeasible due to the unbelievable amounts of energy it would require. A space fountain with a space chamber 2,000 kilometers (1,240 mi) away from the ground chamber would require the same amount of energy as an entire city.