Stratolaunch Flies Has First Flight of World’s Largest Airplane

17 thoughts on “Stratolaunch Flies Has First Flight of World’s Largest Airplane”

1. Probably a plane with a 2000 ton capacity could carry an SSTO Starship,
   but we are talking huge.

2. 30,000 feet of dense atmosphere and strong drag.

3. An airplane with a 500 ton capacity, for example, could give a Falcon 9
   the capability of a Falcon Heavy. It would do the job of the side boosters,
   probably for a lower cost.

4. But air launch has nothing to do with reusability. You can air launch a
   reusable rocket, maybe you need a bigger airplane. The scope of air
   launch is to avoid the pesky low atmosphere.

5. Allen piddled along with this project, funding it at pocket money levels for him. By the time they got the plane finished, reusable rockets made it uneconomic.

   Effectively, air-launch makes the system 50% reusable, since the carrier airplane roughly doubles payload relative to ground launch. But SpaceX is around 80-90% reusable now that have started recovering fairings. In effect, Allen missed his launch window.

6. The prototype for White Knight 1 was a plane called Proteus from Burt Rutan. While most people thought it was a one-off experiment, he’s said in speeches years later that he still rented it out constantly for open-air payloads like huge bays of sensor equipment that would otherwise need to have a whole plane built around them to flight test. I could see this also being leased out for large payloads, drop tests, and so on.

7. A sub-sonic air breathing first stage never did make any sense. I mean, come on! Air breathing planes were exceeding mach 3 half a century ago.

8. another benefit is being able to launch in any orbit, inclanation, or weather.

9. The main energy expenditure of a rocket launch is in getting to orbital velocity, not gaining height.

   About 50% of the total atmospheric mass is within the lowest 5km.

   The benefit is you have a plane + a single stage to orbit.

10. All you need is an extremely powerful rail gun to launch a satellite… projectile launch mode…

11. Except spacex goes to 200,000 feet before firing second stage… strato only goes to “30,000” feet… it’s not even worth it to air drop a rocket… all it saved is 30,000 feet…and not enough velocity, therefore it’s sub orbital… the only advantage I could guess is being able to use vacuum engine nossles instead of sea level nossles…

12. You expect the fuel and operation costs to fly this plane is more than the cost to make, fly and throw away Electron? Could Rocket Lab potentially ferry astronauts to a space station with their 550,000lbs carrying capacity like this plane?

    I believe they pulled back from perusing dev of some space plane after Allen’s death, I assume they expect Allen’s heirs will prefer to spend his cash on other things.

13. The plans for a family of air-launched rockets were cancelled after Paul’s death unfortunately.

14. The sat launch market is only getting stiffer competition, and I think they have a tough road ahead if they think they can be cheaper then Rocket Lab.
    I think their best route is sell the aircraft to Virgin Galactic, maybe they could use it for their SS2, or perhaps a future SS3.

15. There is a market for launch services cheaper than ULA. If they’re not cheaper then they’re a spruce goose.

16. Is it a spruce goose or does it have a market?

17. Allen missed seeing his baby fly by 179 days.

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