| The world's largest plane takes rocket into space |
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Stratolaunch called Microsoft founder Paul Allen's new space projects where the world's largest aircraft lift rockets into space. Paul Allen has been working for years with designer Burt Rutan. Together, they took up Space Ship One, a small spacecraft that starts from an airplane and then get to the edge of space at 100 km altitude.
For that won the Ansari X Prize competition and prize money $ 10
million. Paul Allen had buckets in $ 25 million in the project.
Entrepreneur Richard Branson fell for the idea and be with the company
Virgin Galactic to offer shorter rymdtripper with tourists in a further
developed version called Space Ship Two.
But now Paul Allen on the idea to let the spacecraft launch from aircraft at high altitude, but now, these are really big rockets that can reach out into space. This also applies to manned space flight.
He has commissioned Burt Rutan to plan for an aircraft that can lift
rockets with a weight up to 220 tons. The plane itself weighs 540 tons
and is powered by six jet engines of the type used in the Boeing jumbo
747th Wingspan measuring the 117 meters, the largest in the world. It
needs a lot of big runways, such as the Kennedy Space Center, for
take-off distance is 4000 meters. The plane, a range of 2400 km.
By starting from an airplane gets spacecraft less sensitive to weather conditions, and also saves rocket fuel.
The rockets that are supposed to be used will be produced by Elon Musk
company Space X. Although Musk has made a fortune in the computer
industry with payment system PayPal.
According to Paul Allen, the construction work started at the company
Scaled Composites in Mojave Desert. First test flight of the aircraft
is scheduled to 2016.
Footnote: Tension willows for the second great plan - Hughes' Spruce
Goose: 97.5 m, Antonov An-225: 88.4 m. The latter plane has a starting
weight of 640 tons and can carry about 250 tons.
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