[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

That would be a cool aircraft to get a tour of the insides. So another billionaire will have a bigger aircraft than the billionaire Howard Hughes from a few generations ago.

I was lucky enough to tour it as part of a sales capability visit. The scale is something that has to be seen in person to understand. You cannot see the entire aircraft from any single point in the hangar. Standing on the wing between the fuselages and looking in each direction is puts it into perspective. Because they have re-purposed the systems from several 747s the cockpit is rudimentary, basically an old 747 crammed into a strange looking composite tube.

It's a very interesting program that is very much a billionaire's pet project, there is some economic viability to their business case but it's not a slam dunk. The selling point is that the majority of a ground launched rocket's energy is expended during the first stage of the launch, which is roughly equivalent to the launch parameters of the ROC (carrier aircraft). By essentially skipping stage 1 you can have lighter space vehicles, with more payload capability than a rocket. The ROC is envisioned to eventually carry three spacecraft and because it is an aircraft, can vary the launch conditions to put spacecraft into different orbital inclinations. Using a ground based launch pads, different orbits require different launch locations, whereas Stratolaunch can put multiple spacecraft into multiple orbits on a single flight. It also removes a lot of the risk associated with weather over the launch pad.