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A comment on In California, giant Stratolaunch jet flies for first time. Parent comment

Re:In California, giant Stratolaunch jet flies for first time by tyingq on Sunday April 14, 2019 @10:44AM (#19659673)
That's the sort of thing I'm interested in. Like, for example...how far away are you once you get this huge thing high enough to launch.

I'm not trying to criticize it, I'm just curious how dangerous a typical mission will be.

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Re:In California, giant Stratolaunch jet flies for first time by cmurf on Sunday April 14, 2019 @10:58AM (#19659768)
It doesn't have to fly in one direction, it can do s-turns while climbing, or circle.

I think clearly payload launch is the risky part. What are the kinds of launch failures? Rocket engine failure can be uncontained and spectacular.

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Re:In California, giant Stratolaunch jet flies for first time by mikeash on Sunday April 14, 2019 @10:53AM (#19659731)
You can make occasional turns to keep close to the airport while climbing higher. I don’t know if that’s what they’ll do, but this problem has some easy solutions at least.
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Re:In California, giant Stratolaunch jet flies for first time by 0xffff2 on Sunday April 14, 2019 @10:53AM (#19659736)
> Like, for example...how far away are you once you get this huge thing high enough to launch.

It can climb in a circle so that it's never far from its base.

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Re:In California, giant Stratolaunch jet flies for first time by not_a_terrorist on Sunday April 14, 2019 @10:50AM (#19659718)
It only reaches 35,000 feet.
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