I'm pretty sure it didn't happen that way (unless you have documentation?). SSTO was considered impossible with the technology available during the shuttle's development. Scramjets are still highly experimental and certainly would never have been seriously considered for the main engine system for NASA's primary orbiter during the 1970s.

The system was also designed in entirety before they actually built the thing... there were design changes during prototyping and construction (which is why the prototype OV-101 Enterprise was never converted to the final design, but OV-105 Endeavour was constructed instead), but the layout was decided on before the prototypes were built. They didn't "forget" to include room for fuel or miscalculate the thrust needed for the loaded shuttle. And the Solid Rocket Boosters are by no means mere model rockets, but some of the most advanced solid-fuel rocket systems ever built.

What about a combination: You use a balloon to get into the stratosphere, then take off in a small SSTO to finish the trip.

Thats a okay idea to get into space what about travelling? I know somewhere in the states a company is making a plasma engine called VASIMR and there another company making another plasma engine but in a different configuration, cant remember that name but they look very promising from what I have read and seen on youtube.

Not really, Buckminsterfullerenes, carbon nanotubes and boron nitride nanotubes are being researched right now, it's not a 'what if" question anymore but a "how to" one. That said, they are science fiction novels but it isn't absurd science fiction, there's no faster than light travel or communications, no artificial gravity using energy fields, no molecular transportation.
A space elevator would in the long run be the cheapest way to get people into space, rockets etc still require a fuel burning booster of some sort, a mass driver would kill the passengers with the acceleration forces needed for escape velocity and even if that weren't a risk it still would require a massively expensive amount of energy to operate. The elevator would be massively expensive to build, but once up and running, operating cost and energy requirements would be the least by far of any of the alternatives.

take the strongest (known) material on earth (Diamond) hit it with a mallet in the wrong direction it breaks

Nanotech doesn't change the basic physics
it has to constantly support its own weight plus payload amplified several times by torque stress

And while being sheered constantly by rotational forces
Plus you have to sterilise the corridor its in of all space debris

Basically if we could make spider silk 12 feet thick spun into a rope it MIGHT work

but it would still last only until it broke or caught fire

its cheaper and more effective to manufacture everything on earth and leave it there

Short of a self repairing Living material space elevators and so on are impossible
material would have to be ultra light , extremely strong , non conductive , heat resistant , and unable to stretch

SSTO is "Single Stage to Orbit." If you use a balloon to get that high, it's not a single stage.

I found a concept of a lunar version of a space elevator. Looks cool for a space to moon trip, but I don't see this same system work with a earth to space connection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yenK_Bq1gPU

BUT, I still thing my idea could work with the weather balloons. Maybe we can make a better version of the current balloons, one that is a lot more durable. Plus add a turbine to help with lift, and this just might work. The space elevator in the video, if you just had that end right at the place where the weather ballons ended, you can still use my drone idea to move the capsule to the line, and it would get pulled up into space to the station or HUB.

I don't the weather and condition at that level I have no clue about, but it seems if guys like these can do it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoMN-zg7r3M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCAnLxRvNNc

Then why can't is work on a bigger scale. Never mind that balloon burst lol. We use strong type that don't have that issue.

Okay ... a "small spacecraft". Better?

What I dont get is back in 2003 they cancelled the x-33 which is the miniature version of the VentureStar which was supposed to replace the shuttle but was cancelled due to the internal tank problems but later managed to make a new one and it works, why not use it? Also they designed other new technologies such as a new heat shield and the Aerospike engines? im surprised they did not upgrade/retrofit the shuttle with these new technologies.

this is what I am talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYI1CNaGrc

sollvax, there is always someone saying it's impossible until somebody else figures out how to do it, all I'm saying is the the whole idea of a space elevator is being researched right now and a lot of governments are very interested, Japan in particular. Space Elevators, Space Fountains, Launch Loops, Skyhooks, Rotovators. Yes it's mostly theoretical, yes we can't do it today but that doesn't mean we will never be able to do it. Impossible is a word that is used more often than wisely and we have plenty of examples of when that words use was premature.

rajo11, politics and budgetary constraints killed VentureStar, a true reusable spaceplane would be a boon, but there are no incentives to develop it when the same goals can be accomplished using existing rocket technology. If 9/11 had never happened the picture might be different, but with a national debt of hundreds of billions of dollars due to the war, spending billions more developing and implementing a new spaceplane became untenable.