Largest Plane in the World - to launch Shuttle

[Cow Poke]

NASA used a specially modified 747 to move the space shuttle from wherever it landed back to Cape Canaveral for its next mission.

I was in a high rise in downtown Houston one day when this 747/shuttle did a slow fly by around downtown on the way back to Florida --- I happened to look out the window, and saw.... it actually took me a second to realize what I was seeing -- it was incredible.

[Cow Poke]

I thought space shuttles had ridden planes only in movies. Did they actually do it before in real life?

Yup. There's even one parked at Space Center Houston.

shuttle.jpg

[Cow Poke]

I'm not sure the point of that type of rocket launch is to take heavier loads. By the sounds of the actual amount of cargo going into low earth orbit might be little more than eight tons.

Sure - it's WAY less expensive to take the shuttle from 33,000 feet "moving" than to lift it from a dead start.

It seems the point of this launch system is that it would be weather independent and more flexible in terms of where you launch from.

What will truly bring prices down is the full and rapidly reuseable rocket concept that SpaceX is developing.

All that, too.

[Cow Poke]

I'm not sure the point of that type of rocket launch is to take heavier loads. By the sounds of the actual amount of cargo going into low earth orbit might be little more than eight tons.

Lemme take another stab at this --- I'm not a rocket scientist, nor do I play one on Tweb but the real advantage is that, with a horizontal launch, you get the benefit of lift in addition to thrust. Meaning you need a lot less thrust to take off. With a vertical launch, you are relying solely on pure thrust. (The thrust-to-weight ratio of a shuttle is more than 3 times that of a fighter jet.)

It reminds me of the old Air Force joke about an F-4 Phantom ---- "living proof that you put enough engine on something, you can make a brick fly!"

[Wally]

The other not so obvious advantage, you're not carrying your 1st stage oxidizer.

You're swimming in it.

[Sparko]

it says to launch satellites, not shuttles.

[Leonhard]

Lemme take another stab at this --- I'm not a rocket scientist, nor do I play one on Tweb but the real advantage is that, with a horizontal launch, you get the benefit of lift in addition to thrust. Meaning you need a lot less thrust to take off. With a vertical launch, you are relying solely on pure thrust. (The thrust-to-weight ratio of a shuttle is more than 3 times that of a fighter jet.)

I'm also not a rocket scientists, though I kinda love the concept. Its definitely not for launches shuttles, its for launching satellite payloads using a small rocket lifted up into the stratosphere by a plane.

It does get a significant boost from starting at 400mph, but on the other hand its a much smaller rocket than a typical Falcon 9. Big as that plane is going to be, the specs call for a rocket weighing no more than 500.000 pounds, and I'm guessing about 10-15.000 pounds will be cargo. That's roughly half that of the Falcon 9. So its definitely not for heavy cargo, though maybe the advantages will work out and it'll get closer to the 26.000 of the Falcon 9.

Its advantage definitely seems to be reliability and versatility. I've seen a lot of countdowns aborted due to weather conditions hours before launch. I don't have a real statistic but it seems to be 20% of them, and that's for those where the weather forecast had been relatively positive. Using this plane you can simple fly up to an altitude where the weather is always beautiful.

As for reusability, I really hope Rutans rocket here will get that. He's partnering up with SpaceX and Elon Musk, so it might just have that. Otherwise Elon's rockets will be a lot cheaper in the long run, and this concept won't be as important.

It reminds me of the old Air Force joke about an F-4 Phantom ---- "living proof that you put enough engine on something, you can make a brick fly!"

Reminds me of Kerbal Space Program. A game I love. Hence why I think this plane is kinda cool

[Cow Poke]

it says to launch satellites, not shuttles.

Yeah, other photos (artist renderings)2014-10-01-23_00_58-Sierra-Nevada-and-Stratolaunch-Team-Up-on-Dream-Chaser-Space-Plane-NBC-News..jpg