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Subscribe to RSSStratolaunch Systems touts its space transportation system.
The band is getting back together: Seven years after winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize, software billionaire Paul Allen and aerospace guru Burt Rutan are teaming up with SpaceX and other top-flight rocketeers to create an air-launched orbital delivery system. They say the venture will require the construction of the largest aircraft ever flown.
Allen unveiled his new company, Stratolaunch Systems, at a Seattle news conference today. It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.
The Seattle native, who made his fortune as a Microsoft co-founder, said he's long dreamed of following up on SpaceShipOne's success with another revolutionary space effort. "You have a certain number of dreams in your life that you want to fulfill, and this is a dream I'm very excited about," he told journalists and VIPs at the headquarters of Vulcan Inc., which serves as the umbrella company for many of Allen's ventures.
Rutan, who retired from Scaled Composites in April at the age of 67, will serve as a board member for Stratolaunch. He said Allen was the "perfect team member and customer" when they worked on SpaceShipOne. "I'm looking forward to doing that again," Rutan said.
The new venture is significant for the revival of the Allen-Rutan partnership, with the addition of California-based SpaceX and Alabama-based Dynetics as new suppliers. It's like putting Roy Orbison and Bruce Springsteen on the same music stage.
Other players include Gary Wentz, a former chief engineer at NASA, who will serve as Stratolaunch's CEO and president; and former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who is on the board. Griffin said the Stratolaunch air-launch system could make spaceflight more routine by removing many of the constraints associated with ground-based launches. However, getting the company off the ground will require a large investment as well as "the courage to fly through failure to get to success," Griffin said.
Allen agreed that his latest venture won't come cheap. He said he'll spend "at least an order of magnitude more than I put into SpaceShipOne." Allen's investment in SpaceShipOne was estimated at $25 to $30 million, which suggests he's prepared to put at least $250 million to $300 million into Stratolaunch.
Mothership plus rocket
The Stratolaunch system would super-size the arrangement used for the SpaceShipOne launches: Scaled Composites has been tapped to build a carrier airplane that weighs more than 1.2 million pounds, with a wingspan of more than 380 feet. That tonnage rivals the weight of the Antonov An-225, which is recognized as the world's heaviest aircraft. Stratolaunch's dual-fuselage plane would be powered by six 747 engines, and would require a 12,000-foot runway for landing.
Wentz said the venture already has a contract to acquire two Boeing 747s. The engines as well as other subsystems would be used on the Stratolaunch super-carrier. However, Scaled Composites President Doug Shane told me that the 747's metal skin wouldn't go onto the plane. Instead, the new plane's wings and fuselage structure would be fabricated from advanced carbon composites.
Rutan joked that the plane was "relatively close to building, as soon as we can get a building big enough."
The plane would be capable of flying up to 1,300 nautical miles to reach its launch point. SpaceX would provide a shortened version of its Falcon 9 rocket for the next phase of Stratolaunch's route to orbit. Wentz described it as a "Falcon 4 or 5." The multistage booster would be attached to the plane using a mating and integration system developed by Dynetics, and released during the mothership's flight at 30,000 feet. After release, the 490,000-pound rocket would light up to send commercial and government payloads weighing up to 13,500 pounds into low Earth orbit.
Elaine Thompson / AP
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, right, shakes hands with former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin as aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan looks on, following a Seattle news conference to announce the creation of Stratolaunch Systems.
Griffin said the Stratolaunch system would initially serve "a thriving commercial satellite market, small to medium" — the type of market previously served by the now-retired Delta 2 rocket.
Wentz said the rocket to be developed by SpaceX would not compete with SpaceX's own Falcon 9, which can lift 23,050 pounds to low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral. Allen said "we're in a different class of payload size," and SpaceX's vice president for government sales, Adam Harris, concurred. "There's room in that [payload] class for something new," Harris told me.
Allen said the Stratolaunch system won't take on human passengers until the system's safety and reliability are fully demonstrated. But if and when it does, "we could be very competitive" with the $60 million-a-seat fee that the Russians will be charging NASA over the next few years, he said. Rutan suggested that people could make up a significant share of the payloads in the longer term. "I don't think there's any limit to the number of payloads in that category," he said.
Stratolaunch's briefing materials said more than 100 people have already been assigned to the effort in California and Florida as well as in Alabama, where the company is headquartered. Flight tests of the plane are due to start in 2015, with the rocket added to the test phase in 2016. The plane will be tested at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, but the base for launch operations has not yet been selected.
Re-entering the space race
Allen and his partners say air-launched systems can send payloads into space at lower cost, with greater safety, more flexibility and faster turnaround time than ground-launched systems. That would be because the carrier airplane effectively gives the rocket a head start on its ascent to orbit, and can launch from a variety of midflight locations. But the launch industry is becoming more competitive, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX and smaller rocket companies such as Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace.
Someday, Allen and Rutan may find themselves in competition with Virgin Galactic, which has incorporated SpaceShipOne technology into the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane and is expected to start commercial service in the next year or two. Today, however, Virgin Galactic issued a statement welcoming the new venture.
"It takes me back to the exciting conversations the three of us had in 2004 when we first started talking about commercializing SpaceShipOne technology," Virgin Galactic's founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, said in the statement. "We've come a long way since then; WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo are built and flying, and we have nearly 500 private individuals and science researchers signed up and ready to fly. The potential of the industry we are leading is immense but will depend on the continuing emergence of truly safe, affordable and transformative technologies. Burt and Paul's record in that respect is unmatched. I hope that in due course, in partnership with Stratolaunch and others, we will be able to repeat the pattern that has worked so spectacularly well in the suborbital sphere, for orbital spaceflight.”
Watch the full Stratolaunch Systems news conference in Seattle.
The commercial space race may have changed over the past seven years, but Allen clearly wants to get back on the track. At the end of his autobiography, "Idea Man," he dropped a broad hint about the plans announced today. "I'm just now considering a new initiative with that magical contraption I never wearied of sketching as a boy: the rocket ship," he wrote. "Someone, after all, is going to have to get behind SpaceShipThree."
But does Allen expect to ride the Stratolaunch into space someday? During the news conference, the 58-year-old billionaire said he'd probably wait until a good number of flights have been flown. "I'm actually a really conservative guy in some aspects," he confessed.
More on the future of spaceflight:
- Next steps in a new space race
- Private-sector space age turns 7
- SpaceX chief aims for Mars
- Boeing runs hard in the new space race
- Future spaceflight goes virtual at Sierra Nevada
- Blue Origin spruces up its rocket report
- Cosmic Log archive on the new space race
Last updated 11:20 a.m. ET Dec. 14.
Correction for 4:20 p.m. ET Dec. 13: I originally wrote that two failed NASA missions (Orbiting Carbon Observatory and Glory) were launched using air-launched systems — but they were actually launched from the ground, using Orbital Taurus XL rockets. Sorry about the error. I had the Orbital Pegasus XL in mind, which has recorded a string of successful launches from the air going back to 1997. The Taurus XL was derived from the air-launched Pegasus XL.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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its good to see the private sector out doing the government but am not going up in that thing until they start saying its safer than driving..
The rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer and this is why. The rich care nothing for this planet they have destroyed and tipped in their favor and in the end when it all goes down they will be the only ones to escape the chaos. People used to create projects like these in the name of science and spread their knowledge for the benifit for all mankind and now we are all left with the consequences from those who have always been in charge desicions. Brag it up Mr. Billionare, enjoy living off consumers and intrest while you can because it will all be different when the boot is on the other foot. You the rich owe it to society to share all that that has been given to you by society, you would not be rich if it weren't for the people who made you so and when it comes down to it you couldn't live one day in the poor mans shoes. Yes I am jealous, this dream should belong to all of mankind to prosper with yet it seems that the super rich are the only ones who will be living it. I bet you couldn't have even achieve this without government help or the nice tax breaks you've recieved in the last 10 years. You make me sick, if you even had half a heart/brain you would invest your money into an entire industry creating jobs for people making these spacecraft and help your fellow man get off this rock before we all blow it up with our indifferences, but no, you hoard it all to yourself and show it off as some big accomplishment which probably wouldn't have even been possible without the help of others. If you're so great and so good of a person show it or stop the bragging you worthless bag of krap.
"People used to create projects like these in the name of science and spread their knowledge for the benifit for all mankind..."
Your first mistake is the implicit assumption that all space flight is (or should be) for science. It isn't. Never was. Will be an even smaller part of the total, in the future. Are all sea-going ships oceanographic or other research vessels? (And even a 'science' payload needs the cheapest, most reliable transportation to orbit, right? That's what this is about.)
"Yes I am jealous, this dream should belong to all of mankind to prosper with yet it seems that the super rich are the only ones who will be living it."
If I didn't risk some of my own money in in its development (which could fail...then what?), they don't owe me squat. I don't necessarily have to ride in it to benefit from it. There are people working in aviation in one form or another, who have themselves never left the ground. But they're pleased to have those jobs anyway. I also don't have to own or operate it, to benefit from it. I've flown many times on aircraft I couldn't afford to buy...but they took me where I wanted to go.
If you're going to provide a space access service (or the vehicles for it) of any kind, you have to have a lot of bucks to start with. That's just the way it is, you can't do it with just two guys in a garage. And it's not a sure bet, either. It's often said that the surest way to make a small fortune in space...is to start with a large one. All your lofty words don't change the fact that these, and all other 'NewSpace' companies are taking a serious financial risk.
"I bet you couldn't have even achieve this without government help or the nice tax breaks you've recieved in the last 10 years."
States, cities...even countries give tax breaks all the time, so as to bring those potential jobs to their people. (And companies sometimes leave, if those taxes get too high.) There is nothing new there. And, there may be technology in that design originally developed by NASA involved, yes. Good. That's what NASA is for:
"(c) Commercial Use of Space.--Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the Administration seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space."
That's from the NASA Charter.
"You make me sick, if you even had half a heart/brain you would invest your money into an entire industry creating jobs for people making these spacecraft..."
And...exactly how do you think these vehicles will get built, if not in that manner? They will not build and fabricate themselves.
"...but no, you hoard it all to yourself..."
Some people are philanthropic. And big philanthropy requires big money. But outside from a few things from Bill Gates, it's not newsmaking. And when you go use some of it to obtain expensive things, you're said to be buying 'toys for the wealthy,' forgetting that even yachts require yacht makers.
"...and show it off as some big accomplishment which probably wouldn't have even been possible without the help of others."
Um, most of us understand that you don't even manufacture toothpicks, much less spaceships, without employees working for you. Even Steve Jobs didn't pretend to be all of Apple. No one does big things by themselves. The Talent is to know how to bring the capital and labor of others into it with you.
Just so you know, I have a manufacturing job.
Rich Hater,
What makes me sick is folks like you who think you have any right telling another person what they need to do with their money. You have NO rights over any other persons property. I don't care if you gave all of you money to these people for the services they provide, that doesn't give you the right to tell anyone what they should do with their money.
Furthermore, Paul Allen is a job creator in every sense of the word. It's people like Paul Allen that help society, not hinder it. For you it's as simple as a target on the face of all rich people, but it's just not that simple.
Paul Allen has given, over his lifetime, around a BILLION dollars to non-profit or charitable organizations.
Rich Hater, your blind hatred of people you don't know is despicable. If you know someone and have reason to hate them, that's one thing. But you don't know anyone who is rich, do you? I can tell that you certainly don't know Paul Allen.
dang.... he does hate the rich...you go man...
I wonder if they would take a $60,000,000.00 check?
The question is which billionaire is going to be the first to send a probe to Europa to take a sample of the Europan water and then return the sample to Earth so we can all sense what it will be like taking a sip of the first off world water?
Europa has a whole lot of water under its surface. Water just waiting to be drank by humans.
I can see a thousand aghast scientists now, just dying to examine it for dissolved inorganic material content, and any evidence of biology...
If we had a sample of water from beneath the ice of Europa, the last thing that we'd do with it, is waste it in proving that humans can safely drink H2O.
That question is already pretty well answered. Yes, we can ingest moderate amounts of H2O (no matter what planet it's from), but it's a bad idea to try to breathe it...
If I were 67 years old, (1 foot in the grave), what would I be doing with my billions. Feed the hungry children. Make sure the families and children living in homeless shelters knew they had a home for as long as they wanted. Helping the sick. Aiding the missions world wide to help with crops and fresh water for the dying masses. Giving until it was all gone for the better of mankind. Space will always be there.
The Bill Gates Foundation is working on those things feverishly.
BUT, with an OVERPOPULATION OF SEVEN (7) BILLION PEOPLE - which the WEALTHY DID NOT CAUSE -
HOW MUCH LONGER will MOTHER EARTH be willing to sustain MAN-is the BIG question now.
(She may be getting sick and tired of all the parasites on her back)
You overestimate how far even a few billion can go...
But as I said to someone else, this spacecraft project isn't charity, it's business. If successful, we get 'space' (or at least a cheaper path to it) and someone who could still engage in philanthropy. (Though I don't pretend to know how much of that Paul Allen may already be doing...that's not what the article was about.)
You can't give money, if you don't make money. You can't give BIG money, if you don't MAKE big money. And you can't make big money, if you don't do big business.
MONEY doesn't mean a THING to Big Mamma Earth.
(Only to foolish, overpopulated homo sapiens)
@Walter I
I've been posting about the most significant problem the planet Earth is currently facing and one that most people seem to want to avoid - overpopulation.
If, within a relatively short time we are unable to bring the birth rate below the death rate, I do believe that cataclysmic events will perform the depopulation of our world. The possibilities of nuclear war exist and become more significant as the competition for dwindling resources becomes more and more bellicose with the passing of time. The possibility of catastrophic pandemic disease also increases Droughts, crop failures, starvation and other natural catastrophes are in the wings, waiting for their acts to take center stage.
When you can no longer breathe the air
When you can no longer drink the water
When the land can no longer bear fruit
Then, and only then, will you realize
We CAN'T EAT MONEY.
That is a lofty cause. And I do not disagree with your desire to give and give and give.
But, I would add only that there are better ways to help your fellow man than with handouts. Helping someone find a way to be self sufficient is always better than providing them with free room and board. Self sufficient people are better for society than people waiting for next months rent check.
Actually, this air-launch concept, while appealing, really doesn't give the rocket much of a "boost". At 50,000' altitude and 500 kts, you're only 3% of the way to orbital velocity and 13% of the way to the edge of space (62 miles). It DOES get you above the thicker part of the atmosphere, but launching from midair is a lot tricker than just setting the rocket on a pad. SeaLaunch, which launches from a platform in mid-ocean, has had several disastrous failures. Dropping a rocket this big from a mother-ship is no small feat, especially the guidance systems. Just ask Orbital Sciences: Their Pegasus air-launched system has had a pretty mediocre success rate over the years.
Actually, I made the mistake of confusing the Pegasus with the Taurus but corrected it early on. The air-launched Pegasus has had a very good success rate over the past 15 years. It's the ground-launched Taurus that has been having problems recently.
"It DOES get you above the thicker part of the atmosphere..."
You underestimate how important that is. Not only for reduced drag, but for rocket nozzles (which work ideally at one specific external air pressure, and are less efficient above or below that design point) which now need be only a compromise between atmospheric pressure at launch altitude and vacuum, instead of sea-level and vacuum. The plane is effectively a reuseable 'stage.'
"... but launching from midair is a lot tricker than just setting the rocket on a pad.?"
But similar things have been tested. There are fewer unknowns than you think.
Google: transformational space air launch
Google: air launched Minuteman
It seems to me that in the photo of Allen and Mike Griffin Mr. Allen seems to be very proud of his new rocket.
LOL!
Did anyone else notice on the photo the odd shape lined up with Paul Allen's pants zipper? I could not stop laughing...
A few years ago, I attended a Cinerama screening of How the West Was Won in Los Angeles. The Cinerama people said it was a new print costing $250,000, which was paid for by Paul Allen . . . just so that he could see it (there is a Cinerama theatre in Seattle).
Now that must have been the most expensive movie ticket ever.
Over a decade and a half ago I started harping the AF should move ahead with the pegasus. It has proven itself and the concept does make sense. Paul is certainly a can do kind of guy and as for the other guy, it is not even a question. All I ask is the big giants stay outta of my way and let me build the uss enterprise, starting with a small shuttle first...I don't want their money, I don't want their tech, I just want them to stay outta the way. Glad to see them pursuing this tech....I am still laughing at glovers comment that the wheel is way older, what is the point....very funny frank, very funny. If I ever lost my faith in science there would be nothing left to do but play with chemical rockets......lucky us. We should also keep our eyes open for other joint ventures from russia or europe et all....this is a formative time and when big money starts changing hands, small concepts start going viral....we all know the prize is fame and fortune and peace on earth......
I proposed to the White House and the U.K. that a large plane be built which could launch payloads into orbit. This vehicle would be assembled in a vehicle assembly building, and then roll out on rails to a railroad type turnstile, which would enable this plane to launch in any direction from any of several rails several miles long which converge on this turnstile in a radial pattern. This LOX augmented jet engine powered plane would look very much like a standard cargo aircraft, but instead of having a fuselage, the entire fuselage would be replaced by a combined second and third stage rocket assembly with the main wing mounted above. There would be twin booms connecting a joined tandem tail assembly, and an inverted cradle mounted between these two tail booms. This launch assembly would take off from the rail system with the aid of JATO units, leaving the rail undercarriage behind on the rail. It would climb to release altitude, at which time the entire second and third stage rocket assembly would be released to ignite and fly up into space. The pilots would be inside a cockpit mounted in the forward center of the main wing, and this main wing with tandem tail assembly attached by two tail booms (join by inverted cradle) would then fly back to land in a 'tail dragger' configuration, using landing gear which deploy from the main wing. This was my personal design for an aircraft launched orbital rocket, which I tried to share with both the White House and the U.K. - Rick Carter
PS - Inverted skis mounted high up ON each side of the rail undercarriage, would in turn contact roller blade assemblies mounted on the underside of the main wing on each side, and this would serve to support the load of the main wing while it is on the rail carriage. Once takeoff speed was reached, there would be a tilt assembly in the rail carriage which would tilt the plane upward, at which time the JATO units at the rear of the twin tail booms would fire (together with a short burn JATO unit on the rail carriage to push the rail carriage clear), and the plane would lift off of the rail carriage, which in turn would remain behind on the launch rail. - RC
(Of course I am also the same Rick Carter who has been trying to tell the world for over a decade now that all three of the corrupt Abrahamic religions were covertly designed and installed by outside offensive totalitarian ETs, for the express purpose of crashing and exploding our emerging human world in a final programmed cataclysm of global warfare fueled with WMDs, known as the Christian Apocalypse or World War III. So no one really wants to listen to me about anything anyway. In any case, everyone should be aware that the Obama White House just recently totally discredited me by denying there was any evidence in U.S. government hands regarding the presence of ETs and UFOs around our world. So now the entire world is completely free to regard me, Rick Carter, as the worst liar and deceiver, even the worst heretic, blasphemer and apostate person who has ever lived on the face of the Earth.) - Rick Carter
Obama team: No evidence of extraterrestrial life
By David Jackson, USA TODAY
Nov 06, 2011
The White House says there is no evidence of life beyond Earth -- and no cover-up by the government -- but scientists are still searching.
"The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race," writes an Obama administration official on the White House website.
Phil Larson, who works on space policy and communications at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, also writes that "there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye."
President Obama's White House responded to a petition claiming a government cover-up of contact with space life.
((I am still here (at the end of a long day). (Apparently) they haven't taken me out yet. What else can I say, "So far, so good!" God, I am TOTALLY eating this up !!!)) - RC (You all have NO idea how much of a throwback I AM. My knuckles even drag on the ground). RCx2
Good Read, and good luck to them. Look forward to seeing results.
Sounds great, but why can't they build something that leaves no leftover pieces floating around in space!
Yep. Our trash problems have even started "up there."
Don’t forget the faeces all over Mount Everest.
Lovely, isn’t it?
Here's to hoping that this works. Way to go!
I'll take my Big Government national pride over the space goose any day.
"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!"
Albert Einstein
(Do it for the INNOCENT that's left of the species!)
Einstein said a lot of stuff.
"Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools." - Albert Einstein
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein.
"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?" - Albert Einstein.
mob: The one that's literally waved around in our home:
"Any man who reads too much and uses his brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
Einstein
(And it's AIMED at a Yale Physicist- who else?)
:-)
If you give the homeless homes you will find that they rip out the fixtures and sell the copper for drug money. Than they crap in the closets untill they're full and in a year or less the home is destroyed and they are back living under the bridge where they belong. Way more productive to spent the money on science.
world needs a whole lot more birthcontrol. You can have you welfare benefits but you have to have a little procedure first.
I love this thinking outside the box approach. While there was no mention of specific $/lb to what orbit I still wonder how it might compare to a conventional rocket launch. Of course 7 tons to orbit is small potatoes but it could still be very useful.
I suspect that the price per pound of payload won't be the competitive factor here, I believe Mike Griffin signaled that in his comments after the press conference. It's more a question of versatility and reliability for launch. (Fewer constraints on launch.) But maybe that will contribute to lower costs; might even lead to a new way of thinking about spaceflight as more of a routine exercise.
I'm not an aeronautical engineer, but doesn't the design put a tremendous amount of stress on the center wing section? Perhaps they should join the horizontal stabilizers.
That is a key question: How big can you make an airplane, especially when you're hanging a rocket on the middle? Rutan and Scaled's Doug Shane both told me they've done the analysis on the structure and obviously believe it can be done, but I think that'll be the crucial feat.
orbiting hotel?
The rocket in the photo of the model doesn't look much like a rocket. It looks like something else. And worse is the location of Paul Allen standing behind it.
While we wallow in a dirty, dying, and contaminated planet; Paul Allen prepares for his escape.
To...where? This will only get you to Low Earth Orbit, where a lot of us want to go (and go on from), anyway.
If this was just about Paul Allen, there are cheaper ways for him to do it.
I submit that you've watched 'When Worlds Collide' a little too much...
I have never seen When Worlds Collide, I just refuse to drink the Kool aid.
Thanks for the report, Alan. This is great news. I don't know whether it will actually prove simpler, cheaper, or more flexible than a conventional first stage, but because I don't know, I'm mighty glad to see somebody trying it!