- The plane is a mix of old and new. Stratolaunch purchased two used Boeing 747 airplanes for many of their components. That includes their jet engines (six will later be installed on the plane, with the other two as spares), their landing gear, and even the cockpits. One cockpit is being installed in the right fuselage, with minor modifications, while the other is being used as a flight simulator.
Much of the rest of the airplane, though, is new construction, using carbon composite materials. “We tried to reuse as much of the Boeing 747 as we could,” Beames said, “but this is actually a very special aircraft by nature of its size.”
Mmmm hm.
- Beames hinted he is not fond of “Roc,” given that it sounds like “rock” and doesn’t sound like something that would fly. He suggested the plane might simply become known as “Stratolaunch” going forward, although that will require some significant internal rebranding: there were a lot of signs and stickers with the Roc name on equipment in the hangar, and on shirts of the employees building the plane.
Myeahhhhhhh...
I mean... it might not be a catastrophic failure waiting to happen.
This seems like a Spruce Goose kind of effort: One of those things that a rich nutball makes his pet project, to prove a point... just in time to be surpassed by other superior technologies. I fully expect this thing to fly, launch a couple of systems, and then become a tourist attraction that people pay $15 to walk around out in the Mojave Desert.
I think it was Dwayne Day that pointed out what a stupid idea Aurora/Brilliant Buzzard was because the effort to get near the Kaman line pales in comparison with the effort necessary to actually get over the Kaman line and really, you're far better off just sitting your payload on a big fuckin' rocket. My personal hypothesis is that the Scaled approach to suborbital launch was deemed far riskier than initially calculated and they're trying to scavenge a profitable use from the technology. Accidentally dumping a few microsats into the ocean is a lot less damaging to the reputation than dumping a payload of rich people.
This is where I saw VirginGalactic's idea of reusability heading, though I didn't think it'd be nearly copy/pasted. Neat concept, but I'm with y'all's lot so far as not seeing it go much farther. Can't imagine the pitch being anything other than "Remember WhiteKnight? Lets just make that bigger! With more engines!"
Don't know why the he'll my brain short circuit ed when I read this. You're absolutely right with regard to airfoil + air frame. I can't find my notes from the specific year of study in HS which is a damn shame, but my idea of fluid dynamics as the aircraft enters the upper atmosphere is hazy, but my thought process is skeptical of the influences of reduced air density being helpful for nav/stability. Even if I am wrong, though, I'm more than certain the team is leaps and bounds more educated on the matter and taking appropriate precautions.
The tricky bit is the tensile strength of your structural members goes up linearly with cross-sectional area while your surface area goes up as the square and your volume goes up as the cube. The same thing that keeps ants smaller than elephants rewards aircraft that remember they're not whales. It's not so much a "stability" problem per se it's the fact that a big plane has to deal with more forces and less unity of strength which requires more care.
I was going to post this. The issue I have with the concept is that the delta in velocity is not that much. This plane will fly, at best, 600MPH. Orbit is 18,000. Now I am going to assume that you do gain some benefits in getting over the air resulting in less drag and that the fuel needed to overcome the inertia of starting at 0 is non-trivial. But even the Pegasus was a commercial flop and they were aiming for an under served market segment willing to pay just about anything to get to orbit. When, not if WHEN, SpaceX can launch, recover, refurb and relaunch their first stages in less than 60 days, the economics of this plane will collapse. What I see happening? Mount a telescope on that center pylon and fly to 70,000 feet. Sort of like SOFIA With the better engines and flight profile it has to be cheaper than flying a 747 with a giant hole in the side of its fuselage.
I really doubt it. This thing has to have significantly more dry mass than a 747, and it's got two extra engines burning fuel. Plus, that telescope is going to cause a bunch of drag no matter where you put it....it has to be cheaper than flying a 747 with a giant hole in the side of its fuselage.
Oh, shit there is only one of those. No wonder it takes 8 months to get to use it. Could have sworn there were two. This plane looks amazing and is going to look awesome in the sky. But, and I think we both are on the same page here, it is a solution looking for a problem and a customer base. the more I think about it, I'm going to be shocked if this plane is in the air more than 2-3 years. Maybe they use it for airshow flyovers etc., but space launcher? By the time they get this up and running Bezos will have people on his rocket and Musk will be reusing his boosters.