Using rockets to reach space

Then just make the slingshot larger, dummy.

Damn my nostalgia is kicking in
>Be 12
>Launch ball bearing parallel to pond, watch it skip like 50 times across
>Hone my skills
>Walking around in the woods with my slingshot just shooting random things
>Couldn't bring myself to shoot animals because I felt it would be a waste
Come to think of it hunting small game with a slingshot would be fun af.

Not really a slingshot but this is what the HARP gun was for. The ultimate project goal was launching small satellites into LEO for a trivial cost. It was actually working pretty well but eventually lost its funding due to people pressuring the government into refunding a project they saw as having only military applications and "insane"

A rubber slingshot would be impractical, we could get stuff moving really fast using a giant gas gun or electromagnetic mass driver. It would need to be thousands of kilometers long in order to safely launch people though.

>Implying the thing won´t incinerate or even break by being hit with so much energy
>Implying a thing that even can handle being hit by so much energy won´t weight like a gazillion KG

The HARP project found some pretty good ways to protect against the shock. It's not at all impossible