/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11927513
Now, of course, the big reason why whatever the USAF and NRO were working on in the late 80s and early 90s actually worked, was because unlike Stratolaunch and Virgin Galactic, the air-launched TSTO they built utilized a carrier aircraft that vaguely resembled an XB-70 because it's launch profile allegedly involved the carrier aircraft releasing the orbiter in the middle of a (possibly rocket-assisted) supersonic zoom climb at >60,000 feet, like that F-15-launched antisatellite missile that the USAF tested in the 1980s. The logic was apparently that since the mass fraction and payload margins for the (essentially) SSTO orbiter were so razor thin, that extra 1500-2000 knots and 60,000+ feet on release could be the difference between the concept actually working or not.

Again, when you're drowning in money like the 1980s era US military, you can justify spending billions on an XB-70 successor to be your carrier aircraft, but even Paul Allen who was richer than Steve Jobs or Elon Musk (at the time, at least) had to slum it with a subsonic mothership, which is why the air-launched concept is utterly idiotic for the civilian world.