Stratolaunch with Massive Airplane in Development Closing Down Operations

[jimjim1]

Originally Posted by PastTense

Presumably companies would buy it mostly for the intellectual property--patents, etc.

It appears to be the entire concern that is for sale - not simply the aircraft.

[capngrog]

Originally Posted by Global Aviator

Who is going to pay $400 mil???

Everyone's friends, the Chinese.

Cheers,
Grog

[WingNut60]

A theme park??

[Slsman100]

Some clever surgery and they'll have two planes to sell.

[Smythe]

$400 million, who was going to make the air-launch satellites for this, perhaps they would venture it?

[czarnajama]

Originally Posted by ironbutt57

amazing all the "arm chair" engineers here forecasting the structural failure of the aircraft...did you ring up the engineers who designed it and share your expertise??

This concept of the two tails has been well proven in Burt Rutan's previous designs such as the "Voyager" and the jet-powered "Global Flyer". These two are the only aircraft to have flown non-stop unrefuelled around the world, passing through some vicious weather, so I would say that Rutan's design is not likely to fail easily. I would hope that this bold project does not fail, but its main difficulty is probably the lack of a suitable rocket. Originally it was meant to fly some version of Space X Falcon, but that fell through, and the existing Pegasus rocket has a perfectly adequate Lockheed Tristar 500 carrier and is rather small for the Stratolaunch plane. Given the success that Space X has had with the retropropulsive return concept for boosters, the market for a medium air launch system simply may not exist anymore, and if Starship/Super Heavy works as advertised, it never will.