5 ms·
"Allen's rocket will be launched from a massive carrier aircraft powered by six jumbo jet engines, to be constructed by Scaled Composites, a unit of defense con
by tectonic 15y ago
"Allen's rocket will be launched from a massive carrier
aircraft powered by six jumbo jet engines, to be
constructed by Scaled Composites, a unit of defense
contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. The rocket itself
will be made by private space company SpaceX,
founded by Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal."
- cal5k 15y agoThe key distinction between this and Virgin Galactic: orbital spaceflight!
- cwe 15y agoThat's definitely the most interesting part. A clone of SpaceShipOne, with a rocket done by SpaceX? Is there anything special about this company?
- ryanwhitney 15y agoMojave Aerospace Ventures developed SpaceShipOne. It was co-founded by Paul Allen. Seems odd this wasn't mentioned in the article.
- maaku 15y agoVery odd, as this is effectively SpaceShipThree.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoNot a clone of SpaceShipOne, a new carrier aircraft that is a derivative of White Knight / White Knight 2 and a new rocket that is a close relative of the Falcon 9. The "special" part is that nobody has done that before, and it may prove to be a worthwhile endeavor.
- zandorg 15y agoJust pointing out that Musk is not necessarily a 'billionaire' in actual net worth.
- VladRussian 15y agoyet his [successful] endeavours look like of a billionaire
- shingen 15y agoHe is a billionaire these days. He owns 1/3 of Tesla, which has a market cap of $3 billion. His ownership stake in SpaceX is also without a doubt worth a nice chunk of change.