Tag: Paul Allen
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Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch aims to put the world’s biggest plane in the air this summer
Stratolaunch’s twin-fuselage plane catches the rays of the sun during a test outing. (Stratolaunch Photo) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch space company says it’s on track to conduct the first test flight of its mammoth airplane this summer, and use it to send rockets into orbit as early as 2020. The status…
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Bezos, Musk and more: Space billionaires take the spotlight in books and on TV
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (in hat and sunglasses) pops open a bottle of champagne after Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket landing in November 2015. (Credit: Blue Origin) Space is hard: That used to be the excuse for explaining why sending people into space would always be something only governments could do. Now it explains why…
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Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch picks up the pace in runway tests of world’s biggest airplane
Stratolaunch’s twin-fuselage airplane undergoes taxi tests at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port. Note the size of the pickup truck that’s traling the plane. (Stratolaunch Photo) Stratolaunch Systems, the space launch venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, says it put its super-duper-sized carrier plane through a fresh round of revved-up taxi tests last weekend…
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Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch space venture puts monster plane through first taxi test
The world’s biggest airplane taxis along the Mojave Air and Space Port’s runway during a ground test conducted by Stratolaunch. For a size comparison, note the pickup truck driving between the plane’s twin fuselages. (Paul Allen via Twitter) That’s one more not-so-small step for Stratolaunch’s giant airplane: The space venture’s founder, software billionaire Paul Allen,…
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Billionaire Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch space venture fires up its engines – all six of ’em
The Stratolaunch plane has three engines on each wing. (Stratolaunch Photo / Dylan Schwartz) The world’s biggest airplane hit another milestone this week with the completion of the first phase of engine testing at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port, according to Stratolaunch, the space venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Stratolaunch’s CEO, Jean…
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Air Force secretary hints at military space applications for Stratolaunch super-plane
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson chats with Stratolaunch CEO Jean Floyd (left) at the company’s hangar in Mojave, Calif. The twin-tailed airplane is behind them. (Heather Wilson via Twitter) Stratolaunch, the six-year-old space venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, says it’ll use the world’s biggest airplane to launch small satellites into orbit – but…
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Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch Systems brings monster plane out of hangar for first time
An aerial view shows the Stratolaunch airplane outside its hangar for the first time. The twin-fuselage aircraft is the world’s largest airplane, measured by wingspan. (Stratolaunch Photo) Six years after Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen started up Stratolaunch Systems, the billionaire’s air-launch venture brought its humongous twin-fuselage airplane out in the open for the first time…
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Paul Allen’s Vulcan Aerospace is now Stratolaunch, with a redesigned website
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s space venture is rebranding itself and updating its website as it prepares to begin flight tests of the world’s biggest airplane. The venture was launched in 2011 as Stratolaunch Systems, but over time it morphed into Vulcan Aerospace, with Stratolaunch Systems as a subsidiary. Now it’s officially known as Stratolaunch, period.…
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Billionaire Paul Allen hopes his ‘ginormous’ Stratolaunch plane will fly this year
Paul Allen stands on the wing of the giant Stratolaunch plane during a tour of the hangar in Mojave, Calif., where the craft is being assembled. The plane’s tail is in the background. (Paul Allen via Twitter) The world’s biggest airplane is staying on track to take to the air for the first time by the…
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Book recounts how billionaires Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos helped start a space race
Seattle billionaire Paul Allen (center) shakes the hand of SpaceShipOne pilot Brian Binnie in 2004 with rocket plane designer Burt Rutan by his side. (Photo courtesy of Scaled Composites LLC) Commercial spaceflight seems to be hitting its stride right about now, thanks in part to the launch programs funded by billionaires such as SpaceX’s Elon…