More exciting news about America's future in space exploration

I saw this story first on Yahoo! News (a December 14 AP story by Donna Blankinship and Seth Borenstein), but this article, on Space.com, by Denise Chow, is likely to be available longer.

What you're looking at in the photo above is an artist's conception of a giant airplane carrying a rocket.

How big is the plane? The wingspan will be 385 feet -- 66 feet wider than the prior record-holder, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose. The plane is to be built by Scaled Composites, the company founded by Burt Rutan, the aerospace engineer who, according to Wikipedia, designed the record-breaking Voyager, "the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the sub-orbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004 for becoming the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space twice within a two week period."

The plane would be powered by six 747 engines. The Falcon 9 spacecraft to be carried by this giant will be supplied by SpaceX, the company that will attempt to send a supply mission to the International Space Station in February 2012 (see, this Page Two post).

The idea of an airplane carrying a rocket to a mid-air launching point may be unfamiliar to younger readers, but the rest of us remember how the X-15 reached the edge of space with the aid of a B-52 bomber.

"Mating and integration" for the Stratolaunch project is to be provided by Dynetics, a company whose website boasts the ability to deliver "high-quality, high-value engineering, scientific, and information technology (IT) solutions" to its customers.

I'm not certain what that leaves for Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen to actually do, but he is the "name" attached to the Stratolaunch project and I gather that he is the one putting these corporate pieces together. If he puts the pieces together well, it could be the start of an exciting future... and a real boost to the American economy, too.

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For more information: Stratolaunch press release (pdf)