Quote from: HammerD on 12/13/2011 05:30 pmQuote from: baldusi on 12/13/2011 05:29 pmThat's a 115m wingspan, gross weight of 545tonnes, needs a 3650m landing strip, and will carry an 223tonnes Falcon 9. Uses the Mojave Air and Space Port. And I still can't believe they have Mike Griffin on the board!Seems like an ambitious project, I wish them good luck, but I wonder if it is really better than a ground launch.Well it does get Elon his reusable first stage ...
Quote from: baldusi on 12/13/2011 05:29 pmThat's a 115m wingspan, gross weight of 545tonnes, needs a 3650m landing strip, and will carry an 223tonnes Falcon 9. Uses the Mojave Air and Space Port. And I still can't believe they have Mike Griffin on the board!Seems like an ambitious project, I wish them good luck, but I wonder if it is really better than a ground launch.
That's a 115m wingspan, gross weight of 545tonnes, needs a 3650m landing strip, and will carry an 223tonnes Falcon 9. Uses the Mojave Air and Space Port. And I still can't believe they have Mike Griffin on the board!
I am not sure, those are stubby wings. Reminds me of the OS Taurus.
Quote from: M_Puckett on 12/13/2011 05:47 pmI am not sure, those are stubby wings. Reminds me of the OS Taurus.Don't you mean Pegasus? Taurus and Minotaur are ground-launched while Pegasus is airlaunched by a L-1011 Tristar.
Is there still a press conference at 11 PST?I don't see any schedules on their site.
Yeah, doesn't Scaled make those for Orbital?
What imcub meant is that the AIRPLANE is sort of a "first stage." I don't want to jinx it, but I thought "Spruce Goose" when I first saw it!This plays to some of SpaceX's strengths... They know a lot about rocket manufacture, very little experience with launch operations (and they seem to want to get away from gov't launch sites).
6 747 engines? Or you could say 6 787 engines, Or 6 General Electric Genx, Or 6 Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines. Saying 747 is just trying to puff it up and make it look bigger. So will the 5 Merlin's be Vac optimized?