Many dreamers have an armchair and an oddball plan to get to space. John M. Powell has such a plan, but no armchair. He and his volunteer crew at JP Aerospace have over three decades of experiments, with many pictures and videos on their website, building toward the goal of using a wing shaped blimp to reach a huge floating station high in the atmosphere and an even bigger—and hypersonic—wing shaped blimp to reach orbit.
You can watch their progress on their regularly updated blog or even more regualarly updated Facebook page.