Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is teaming up with a few other tycoons of the private space-travel market to build a part-plane, part-rocket vehicle that will be able to take people and goods out into orbit around the Earth. The new ship called "Stratolaunch" features six 747 engines, a football-field+ wingspan and a big ol' rocket. The 747 engines will help the vehicle get airborne, up to a specific elevation, and then the rocket will detach and shoot out into orbit.
The vehicle is expected to take tourists (eventually) as well as unmanned objects and satellites into space and to the space station, filling the role of the space shuttle, which was recently retired.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/stratolaunch-plane-people-earth-orbit-203001086.html
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