Stratolaunch: A new way to launch (video)

Paul Allen, one of the co-founders of Microsoft, the company that makes the software that runs most of the computers in the world, is developing a new way to sent rockets into space. The new way envolves a very big airplane with TWO fusilages, which is the tube you ride in. The ricked rides between them strapped to the big wing.  When it gets high in the atmosphere (the bubble of air around the planet), the rocket lets go and blasts the short distance into space.

It’s much more efficient than a ground based launch because:

1. You don’t have to build a launch pad that can only be used by rockets. Stratolaunch can take off from a runway that any airplane can use.
2. You don’t have to wait for the exact right time and weather. Stratolaunch can fly to the right place on the planet and fly through and around bad weather.
3. You don’t have to use as much rocket fuel. Rocket fuel is expensive and dangerous. The less you use the better.

Here’s how they launch rockets now, and for the last 50 years or so.