With government funded space flight taking a hit lately, Seattle billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has stepped in with a pioneering vision for commercial space travel. Allen, on Tuesday, unveiled designs for an efficient air-launch system that resembled a giant airplane split into two fuselages. The craft will take both government and commercial payloads into orbit, with human missions as an eventual goal.
Though one might be tempted to compare the giant craft to Howard Hughes’ failed Spruce Goose, Allen’s aircraft is much larger. The billionaire is also no stranger to spaceflight. Allen funded the development of SpaceShipOne, the first manned private spaceflight.
The commercial space transport system will be built by Stratolaunch Systems, Allen’s new company. Burt Rutan, an aerospace engineer integral to the development of SpaceShipOne, will be helping Allen develop his new project. The billionaire believes that the carrier plane lifting rocket ships to higher altitude will be both safer and more cost-effective than launching a rocket from the ground.
“I have long dreamed about taking the next big step in private space flight after the success of SpaceShipOne – to offer a flexible, orbital space delivery system,” Paul Allen stated at a press event in Seattle.
As far as specs go, the aircraft carrier will have an enormous wingspan of 385 feet and will have a gross weight of 1.2 million pounds – it may just be the largest aircraft ever to fly. The carrier will use six Boeing 747 engines and will be able to fly 1,300 nautical miles. The size of the craft’s runway will need to be 12,000 feet long.
The goal is for the Stratolaunch craft to have a first flight within five years. The manufacturing of the aircraft is broken into three primary components. First, is the carrier aircraft which will be manufactured by the Rutan-founded Scaled Composites. The multi-stage booster will be taken care of by Elon Musk’s California-based Space Exploration Technologies. Finally, the coupling system that allows the carrier aircraft to hold the booster will be built by the aerospace engineering company Dynetics. After NASA’s last space shuttle launch, private funding may be just what space travel needs to get us to Kepler-22b.
This is quite similar to the original Space Shuttle concept, which was eventually neutered by Congress and their rabid budget-cutting weasels. The Rube Goldberg-esque strap-on rocket boosters and external fuel tank which NASA had to settle for (due to the budget constraints) are *EXACTLY* what caused the loss of Challenger and Columbia; Challenger when an O-ring on the SRB failed and hot rocket exhaust exploded the external tank, and Columbia when foam insulation fell off the external tank, punching a hole in the heat shield of the wing, and allowing the superheated gases of reentry to enter the wing and rip it off.
I think the combination of Allen’s money and Rutan’s design savvy will finally give us a (relatively) cheap and safe space transportation system.
When one unloads a large payload from an aircraft the wing has a tendency to fold in half or snap off completely. The simulation shows a upward maneuver prior to launch which increases wing loading. I would have Burt Rutan at the controls for the first launch to guarantee a proper flight.
Ok, what this proves is that a billionaire can be a dummy. What Allen doesn’t seem to get is that space travel has almost nothing to do with altitude – and almost every thing to do with velocity (in particular, escape velocity, which is over 18,000 mph. His dumb plane will probably reach 500 mph and might fly as high as 6 miles. When the space shuttle reaches 1000 mph and is at about 25 miles above the earth – IT STILL NEEDS 6 MILLION MORE LBS OF FUEL TO REACH ESCAPE VELOCITY! He should build it in Houston, because he’s going to have a problem.
@ Billionare, if only I were somehow related to that money lol. I agree, the plane flew briefly to shut Congress up but I still believe the project was a failure: siphoning government funds and not delivering on transport for WW2. Allen’s project would similarly be a failure if he couldn’t deliver on his promises at all, even if his aircraft carrier flew once.
If you watch the movie, Howard Hughes needed the Spruce Goose to fly in order to get compensated by the government (and to get other projects).
Howard Hughes’ failed Spruce Goose? The Spruce Goose flew – and not just in the movie – I know a guy who saw the flight. Apologize to your great-grandfather, Jeff!
Jeff replied to you above.
Thanks for the corrections guys. I apologize about the Spruce Goose, I had Howard Hughes’ plane twisted with Mr Burns’ Hughes parody plane from the Simpsons.
I dunno looks more like a Moose to me….That center section will start an occilation when the orbiter is dropped too. Wing loading isn’t working for me, BUT my business is heavy highway transport and I have a PPL multi engine ticket.
Mr Allen has an old Lockheed Constilation at the Airport I fly out of. Connie group are so real classy people and I know Mr Allen can make this work.
Kepler 22B is 600 light years away building a modern version of 1940s transport aircraft is nothing compared to working out how to travel at say 90% of light speed so it would only take us about 25 million years to get there!.
And it will not be the heaviest aircraft to fly as the Antonov AN225 ‘s gross weight was increased after its 2000-01 refit to 640 tonnes or 1,410,000 pounds.
Liked the article and the concept, BUT, it is the SPRUCE GOOSE, not the Spruce Moose!
haha I think Jeff was having a little fun with it!
Spruce Goose, the Moose was a concept plane built by C. M. Burns on the efing SIMPSONS! You stupid!
Thanks guys, I was worried people had forgotten about the Simpsons. They’ve delightfully ruined so many historical and literary moments with their satire. Good show.
He’s part of that whole Yale thing.
Spruce Goose, not moose!
sixfootbrit from digitaltrends.com said:
Spruce Goose, not moose.