Oh yeah, nothing wrong with the 747 carrying the shuttle, that was accurate. The bit that got me was the shuttle launching from the back of it, minus fuel tank no less (as an added bonus, the 747 cockpit had a handy little alert to let the pilots know the shuttle was launching, since that was apparently a big risk of happening).
Don’t get me wrong, I liked Rodger Moore and his less serious take on Bond, but sometimes things got a little… silly.
No, they didn’t start the engines, but the shuttle did detach from the airplane. Which I’m pretty sure had an indicator light in the 747’s cockpit for the orbiter detaching.
Basically, its a scaled down A-12, which itself was the precursor to the SR-71… and it piggy-backs on an M-12, basically another variant in the SR-71 family tree.
I’ve actually seen the D-21/M-12 combo at the Boeing Flight Museum in Seattle, here’s wiki’s pic:
So yeah, its a parasite craft, launches at something like 60 to 90k feet, takes a bunch of pictures at … potentially nearly the Karman line… then poops out a capsule with a parachute, containing the film to be recovered and developed, and then blows itself up.
First flight in 1964.
Nowadays, we and the Russians and the Chinese strap fuck off huge missiles to basically fighter/multirole aircraft, fly them up to as high as they can go, and then shoot said fuckoff huge missile.
… said missile then proceeds to blow up an LEO satellite, which would be moving at… something like Mach 22-24? ish? … if you carry Mach notation outside of the atmosphere.
Its actually an at least feasible in theory concept to do something like a two stage space craft system, where the first stage is an aircraft, and the second stage is a spacecraft.
While the space shuttle is way too heavy to achieve orbit with its own fuel, missing the external tank and SRBs… it is possible that if a shuttle just simply released from the 747, allowed it to dive and get clear, as the shuttle glides… then the shuttle lights its candles…
That could theoretically get an empty shuttle to s decent suborbital trajectory.
As fsr as I know, the shuttle did actually disengage mid flight from one of those 47s, though it just tested gliding aerodynamics, its landing and nav and comm systems, would land on a runway.
Also uh… Branson’s thing, Virgin starship or Stsrship one or whatever, its basicslly a similar idea, fly a small rocket up to a certain altitude, as a parasitr of an aircraft, detach, get clear, light candles, break Karman line.
Oh yeah, nothing wrong with the 747 carrying the shuttle, that was accurate. The bit that got me was the shuttle launching from the back of it, minus fuel tank no less (as an added bonus, the 747 cockpit had a handy little alert to let the pilots know the shuttle was launching, since that was apparently a big risk of happening).
Don’t get me wrong, I liked Rodger Moore and his less serious take on Bond, but sometimes things got a little… silly.
It did happen during Enterprise’s glide tests.
Wait, did they actually fire the rockets during a 747 detach test flight?
No, they didn’t start the engines, but the shuttle did detach from the airplane. Which I’m pretty sure had an indicator light in the 747’s cockpit for the orbiter detaching.
Ah ok, that makes sense!
So… that is rather wild…
But its not entirely out of the realm of kinda/maybe/almost possible.
Like, yes, a rocket essentially hot staging away from a jet is gonna… end really badly for the jet, and probably also the rocket.
But… tone it down a bit… and…
Behold, the first supersonic, reconnaissance, drone aircraft:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21
Basically, its a scaled down A-12, which itself was the precursor to the SR-71… and it piggy-backs on an M-12, basically another variant in the SR-71 family tree.
I’ve actually seen the D-21/M-12 combo at the Boeing Flight Museum in Seattle, here’s wiki’s pic:
So yeah, its a parasite craft, launches at something like 60 to 90k feet, takes a bunch of pictures at … potentially nearly the Karman line… then poops out a capsule with a parachute, containing the film to be recovered and developed, and then blows itself up.
First flight in 1964.
Nowadays, we and the Russians and the Chinese strap fuck off huge missiles to basically fighter/multirole aircraft, fly them up to as high as they can go, and then shoot said fuckoff huge missile.
… said missile then proceeds to blow up an LEO satellite, which would be moving at… something like Mach 22-24? ish? … if you carry Mach notation outside of the atmosphere.
Its actually an at least feasible in theory concept to do something like a two stage space craft system, where the first stage is an aircraft, and the second stage is a spacecraft.
While the space shuttle is way too heavy to achieve orbit with its own fuel, missing the external tank and SRBs… it is possible that if a shuttle just simply released from the 747, allowed it to dive and get clear, as the shuttle glides… then the shuttle lights its candles…
That could theoretically get an empty shuttle to s decent suborbital trajectory.
As fsr as I know, the shuttle did actually disengage mid flight from one of those 47s, though it just tested gliding aerodynamics, its landing and nav and comm systems, would land on a runway.
Also uh… Branson’s thing, Virgin starship or Stsrship one or whatever, its basicslly a similar idea, fly a small rocket up to a certain altitude, as a parasitr of an aircraft, detach, get clear, light candles, break Karman line.
Though afaik it is only sub orbital capable?
cobra night raven