If Paul Allen builds it, it will fly.
The world’s largest aircraft, with a wingspan wider than a football field is long. Longer even than the Hughes Spruce Goose, which is still the largest to date.
To the Moon, Alice!
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Well, it’s better than Branson’s thrill ride for bored onepercenters, but that’s no guarantee it’s gonna be economically viable…
It’s probably more economical than a non-reusable booster. But is it more economical than a non-reusable booster with a government subsidy? We’ll see.
The selling point might be the ability to launch at almost any weather – I’ve been following SpaceX launches lately and they tend to be scrubbed and delayed about 50% of the time. Will that be enough to justify the cost of this behemoth, as opposed to a reusable first stage, seeing as it’s not scalable for large payloads? I don’t know. The SL mothership is comparable in size to a Boeing 747, so assuming similar unit price this should cost about $350 million (probably much more as it’s a one-off). A SpaceX launch costs $60 million all in all so the reusable 1st stage alone can’t cost more than $40 million.
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