iRL the closest we have of a society of mad scientists ( mad, I tell you! ) is the Exotic Propulsion Initiative where physicists so inclined to look for new ways to travel propose their ideas for critique, since we actually would love to find a way to fly that doesn't involve burning long fucktonnes of fuel.

Until we find something (and not all ideas are completely outrageous, we have two alternatives we're working on to get stuff into space (from there , fuel use becomes significantly more efficient.)

One is the space elevator, and this is the more popular idea from Hollywood's perspective. It's a lot easier to climb a thing than rocket a thing.

Before the space elevator, we're considering a launch loop, or Lofstrom loop, essentially a running cable to which freight and passenger cars can be attached to get dragged up into high orbit.

So we may go through a period where we use such structures as a bridging mechanism to near space before we develop space planes.