Rockets expend about 20% of their fuel just to get out of the thick atmosphere.

TIL there was/is a company that tried to glide all the way to space ...

Two weeks ago, I had explored how to get to the edge of space with lighter-than-air vehicles:
 
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I learned so much about rocket science exploring the idea of a 30km high "zeppelin" or blimp ... but got attacked viciously on reddit's r/askEngineers and r/rocketry:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1g700qg/why_are_heavy_lifter_rockets_not_launched_from/ (OP got deleted)
https://www.reddit.com/r/rocketry/comments/1g7qwug/how_much_would_access_to_space_improve_if_we_had/

But I learned that the biggest of rockets have virtually no drag loss but they still have a loss from atmospheric launches called gravity "loss" which comes from the fact that in the initial phase, the rocket has to go up and not sideways while sideways is what you need to get orbital speed. The flatter it accelerates, the more it accelerates in the right direction. That loss is easily 20% of the total budget to low earth orbit. Given that payload makes up only 4% of the total "wet" mass of a rocket, that's a big deal and I still believe, building a 30km high platform held in place by tethers to launch heavy lifter rockets is an idea worth exploring.

Anyway, today I found out there was a company that went even one step further. At 30km, the rocket would still have to start at an angle and could not use ion thrusters from the start Ion thrusters would allow higher top speeds with the same amount of fuel. That company - http://www.jpaerospace.com suggested a platform 42km high with the space ship being a giant, lighter than air mono wing that would gently accelerate and climb from there all the way to orbit. And they did not stop at reddit posts. They did build some small scale models but it looks more like rudimentary hobby scientist builds than the future of space travel.