Friday, March 02, 2018

Paul Allen's six-engined monster plane prepares for space deliveries • The Register

Paul Allen's six-engined monster plane prepares for space deliveries • The Register:
"The world's largest aircraft, designed to one day fling rockets into space, has tested out its taxiing capabilities at the Mojave Air and Space Port in New Mexico.
The 500,000lb (227 metric ton) "Stratolaunch" is the brainchild of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and advanced materials aviation wizard Burt Rutan. 
The pair plan to carry rockets up to high altitude before they fall free, fire up, and deliver cargo into low-Earth orbit. 
Using Bernoulli's Principle to do the heavy lifting for the first few kilometres saves rockets the fuel-intensive and very stressful early moments of flight.
Allen has sunk $300m into the much-delayed project, but on Sunday it rolled out of the hangar.
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