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Paul Allen Launches Commercial Spaceship Project
smitty777 writes "The phrase 'Where do you want to go today?' takes on a whole new meaning as Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder and the world's 57th richest man in the world, looks to create a new spaceship company. Stratolaunch Systems plans to bring 'airport like operations' to the world of private space travel. Partnering with Burt Rutan, the plan is to field a test within five years and commercially available flights within ten. Spacecraft will be air-launched from a giant, six-engined aircraft. There is more information available on the Stratolaunch homepage."
*crash*
...Department comes:
the world's 57th richest man in the world
http://www.airlaunch.ru/index.htm
Paul Allen for the money spigot, Burt Rutan for the carrier aircraft, and Elon Musk/SpaceX for the rocket stages. When I worked on such concepts many years ago at Boeing, we generally found that launching from altitude like that doubles the payload compared to the same rocket starting from the ground, so it makes a lot of sense from an engineering and cost sense, as long as the carrier aircraft costs less than the rocket stages per flight (normally easy to do).
This design overcomes one limitation we had at Boeing, which was the 747 was not quite large enough in it's current form. By going to six engines of the same size as the 747 uses, they solved that problem. Eventually they can also look at flying back the first rocket stage, for even more savings. Once it is empty of fuel, the rocket stage does not weigh much, so it would not take much in the way of wings, landing gear, and some small jet engines so it can fly to a landing. Without knowing how far it will go on a ballistic arc doing it's launch job, it is hard to say if it should fly back to the launch site, or fly forward to another landing location.
and their buddies.
hey, this is money well spent. those billionaires work hard for their space travel. they deserve a break every now and then.
Think of it as the real Trickle-down in action - super rich entrepeneur puts hundreds of people to work, designing, crafting, building, wiring and so on. It's a good thing©
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
For a long time I have wondered why we don't just use massive helium balloons to carry rockets much closer to space. Even if the balloon only gets a quarter of the way to orbit, it gets through the thickest air before the rocket fires.
Unless helium is more expensive than rocket fuel, but helium can be collected from alpha decay right, so it seems like it would be cheaper.
Even if it isn't feasible for big payloads, there are several high class hobbyist rockets out there that can reach 100k feet. Why not ride a balloon up to 70-80k, and then launch the rocket?
I never want to under-estimate Rutan, but he wants to glue two 747 fuselages together and have them flying in 5 years? Like, above houses where people live? Okey doke.
Personally, I was stunned the first time I saw a space shuttle astride a 747. Looked completely ungainly, but those babies have some carrying capacity!
I curious why they don't latch onto some old B52s and bring them up to date. Quite amazing themselves.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yeah, yeah, it was just a model, but they had the concept down 41 years ago:
http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/70estf.html
http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/70est020.html
...perhaps we should have some better places to go? All these companies are spending $ to be able to fly rich idiots into low earth orbit. So what's the next step? the ISS? Oh wait, that's not going to be around much longer. The moon? Well China will most likely be there by the time everyone else is ready. Where else?
Fact is, we don't have the technology to reach even out into our own solar system, let alone anywhere REALLY meaningful (such as some of those "Goldilocks" planets we see millions of light years away but can't hope to get anything other than pictures of). Face it, the private space initiative if crap. It's something for the super-rich to spend their money on. Meanwhile the people who have actually been dreaming of space flight or venturing outside of our solar system, for more than the cheap thrill these private "space flight" companies are offering, for their entire lives are stuck at home in a 9-5 without any hope of being able to pay the cost of entry to the lowest form of space flight possible, or available, to the average person (a.k.a. NOT astronauts).
Instead of this, they should be pooling their money into R&D and backing NASA to help develop the tech we need to GET OFF THIS ROCK and really explore the universe. I hate to sound like a broken record, but we literally know NOTHING about the universe we live in. How can $20,000 - $200,000 (depending on who you go with and when) for a few minutes of weightlessness be what the world is happy with? I for one expected more out of human ambition and curiosity.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Where do you want to be strip searched today?
The launch aircraft has enough range to transport the rocket to an equatorial launch point, which I've read can allow up to a 25% increase in payload
.This might improve on the project's economic chances.
I don't see a problem. He's welcome to spend his own money in any manner he pleases as long as it's legal.
Pegasus was simply grabbing a USAF/NASA project and scaling it down (both in size and economics). They used an L-1011 and creating that. The problem is that Orbital designed poorly. OTH, Scaled has done a number of launches from their system and showed that it worked well. As such, Allen is willing to fund it. I am also going to guess that within 1 year, we will hear that he is funding Bigelow or IDC Dover to put a private space station.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Just saw an interview on the news with Burt and Paul. Paul made a point of saying he would not be one of the first to go up. In fact he would wait for many launches before he would go. I guess he learned something from his time at Microsoft!
You are incorrect. A carrier aircraft doubles the payload to orbit relative to the same rocket starting from the ground. The energy and fuel saved might be only 3%, but if your payload to orbit of the rocket is 3% to start with, then saving 3% will double the payload to 6%.
A carrier aircraft helps in several ways:
* The actual altitude and velocity at the time you light up the rocket
* Reduced g-losses. A conventional rocket starts by going straight up in order to get above most of the atmosphere quickly. When you are thrusting up, gravity fights you by trying to pull you down. This is lost energy. When you thrust horizontally, gravity is perpendicular so does not slow you down. With air-launch, you spend more of your thrust near horizontal
* Reduced drag loss. You are starting above about 80% of the atmosphere, so reduce drag by that much.
* Reduced pressure loss in the rocket nozzle. At sea level, you have to fight 1 atmosphere of air times the area of the nozzle exit. It reduces the rocket engine thrust by that amount. Starting up higher gives you more thrust for the same fuel used.
You need to factor in all of those items to find out the true value of getting launched off an aircraft.
747-400 engines have thrust between 265 and 282 kN (depending on engine model). 777 engines have thrust between 338 and 514 kN. You can get more thrust out of four 777 engines than you can six 747 engines. The design has a high wing, so engine diameter isn't an issue. Why use six engines instead of four?
(A330 and A380 engines have only a small advantage over 747, at 310-320 kN.)
The 747-400 has been around 6 more years than the 777, and 747-300 much longer again. Maybe they can get six used 747 engines much cheaper than four used 777 engines. As a low-usage aircraft, it makes sense to have increased maintenance costs if it saves enough on capital costs.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.