[ExI] darpa's notion of using a retrofitted fighter jet to launch payloads

[Kelly Anderson]

Looks like a rip off of Virgin Galactic's basic concept. My question is why
would this cost a million dollars??

-Kelly

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 12:17 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> This story claims they can get 100 pound payloads to LEO for a million
> bucks everything included.  If so, that would put these payloads in the
> range of universities, smaller companies, well-funded amateur groups, solar
> power experiments and so forth:
>
>
>
>
> http://video.foxnews.com/v/4036325757001/watch-how-darpa-plans-to-launch-satellites-into-space/?#sp=show-clips
>
>
>
> That plane they show as an artist concept is neither F-4, F-14 or FA-18,
> but has elements of all three.  It would be interesting to look at taking
> an F-4, which can be had for practically free, retrofitting it with lighter
> wings and landing gear, get rid of all the war junk, the tailhook and all
> that heavy stuff, look at a rail launch system so that the new landing gear
> need not support the weight and physical envelope of the payload, see what
> takes shape.
>
>
>
> Perhaps we could do a rail-takeoff, air-breathing climb-out to about
> 40k-ft and 500-ish knots (subsonic) at 45 degrees to horizon, drop the
> payload, runway landing, fuel-up and turn around in a couple hours.  That
> would be a fun optimization problem.
>
>
>
> spike
>
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