Posted on 04/13/2019 8:58:19 AM PDT by BenLurkin
[I]n the desert north of Los Angeles, a gigantic, six-engined megajet with the wingspan of an American football field flew Saturday morning for the first time.
Stratolaunch Systems, the company founded in 2011 ... conducted the first test flight of the world's largest plane.
Stratolaunch aircraft is a giant flying launch pad, designed to hurtle satellites into low Earth orbit. It aims to offer the military, private companies and even NASA itself a more economical way to get into space.
The aircraft's wingspan measures 385 feet -- wider than any airplane on the planet. From tip to tail, it's 238 feet long....
The jet, carrying a rocket loaded with a satellite, will take off from Mojave and climb to an altitude of 35,000 feet. There, pilots will launch the rocket from the plane on a trajectory toward space. The plane then will land safety back at Mojave, while the rocket carries the satellite into an orbit ranging from about 300 miles to 1,200 miles above Earth. The rocket deploys the satellite before eventually falling back to Earth, burning up in the sky like a meteor.
Putting small satellites into space via airplanes...eliminates the need for launch pads and all the pricey equipment and infrastructure surrounding a traditional rocket launch... the plane burns less fuel than a traditional rocket when it blasts off from Earth.
Bad weather won't be as much of a problem. Storms can delay a traditional rocket launch, but a jet could simply take off and fly over bad weather -- or around it -- and then launch the satellite.
Launches could take place more frequently and within a faster time frame. No more waiting in line for a slot to open up on a spacecraft blasting off from a traditional terrestrial launch pad.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I understand that, the idea is that nobody has it.
https://www.stratolaunch.com/2019/04/13/stratolaunch-completes-historic-first-flight-of-aircraft/
Was easy to find from the link on cnn. Would have made a better op as there’s video and pics too, plus other articles and info.
It’s designed to launch a spacecraft-carrying rocket from high altitude, thereby saving considerable rocket fuel and money on each launch.
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I’m not doubting that it’s true, but I don’t understand it, and would like to.
It seems like you need X amount of energy to get Y amount of weight into orbit. My layman brain isn’t getting how flying partway alters that relationship.
Again I don’t doubt it’s true but I would like to read more details about HOW it’s true. And how much is really saved.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen. People know it is possible, so they will continue to do it - for example, there is a university effort in New Zealand that can put microsats in orbit now. No way to unring that bell.
And we can’t even clear everyone else’s satellites out of space because unlike the Russians and *especially* the Chinese, we killed off most of our anti-satellite projects. Meanwhile the Chinese are swatting satellites in orbit.
You’re right, and there’s no easy answers. Our satellites work if the government is working for us. It’s when they’re not then it’s a big problem.
Due to inertia and fighting its way out of the gravity well, a rocket will spend more fuel and energy going from sea level to 35000 feet than it will from 35000 to 100000 and beyond. This is because of (among other things) the rocket will be at its heaviest at sea level due to gravity. The rocket must also fight against much higher air pressure at sea level pushing it down. And of course it has to lift all the fuel it needs to launch more or less vertically.
If you lift the rocket to 35000 feet, you can generally toss the boosters and all of the first stage lift. You need less of everything to get to orbit from 35000 feet. This is why things like experimental spaceplanes were launched off high altitude bombers instead of rockets. Using a carrier plane is more efficient as it doesn’t have to go vertically and fight perpendicular to gravity.
Sorry. I didn’t meant to sound pedantic.
Hi, Grampa. I watched “Strange Angel” based on your comment. Just finished Season 1. What a great show! Thanks for the recommendation.
My son and I always enjoy the videos of the support aircraft to the Blue Angels taking off. “Fat Albert” uses JATO rockets to get airborne. I never knew the history of the development of the JATO. So it’s very fascinating watching this show!
It’s very well done, but sure can be weird at times.
Thanks.
Old engineers, my age and older have told us that the West Coast so called top Engineering schools were portrayed fairly well.
The show can get into some dark stuff re life styles at that time in LA
Agreed on carrying on after Paul Allen. While I couldn’t stand his liberal politics, he was a bright guy with a look to the future.
He loved reading sci-fy books as a kid, which was part of his interest in this plane. His mom had given away all of those books after sitting in his boyhood home for so long. He had people go through old photographs of his room and figure out what was on the bookshelves. Then had his people search all over to recreate his childhood library! (Pre- Amazon days).
I didn’t realize the occult was so big in the depression era. Makes sense, I guess, given what was happening. There’s an interesting profile of Jack Parsons on Wikipedia. I’ve known people like him (and worked for them) — consummate promoter and salesman who can get anybody to buy into a dream, but technically not worth crap.
“I didn’t realize the occult was so big in the depression era.”
Remember, this was LA/Hollywood as the Depression was wearing off for that area.
When, we moved to California on the late 1960’s, we were amazed at the number of non Christians on the west coast from California to Seattle.
Some of those non Christian and often occult people were born during this time period and afterwards were proud of not being Christian.
That behavior spawned the SF Hippie movement in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
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