Keith’s note: During a press conference Monday morning, NASA Administrator Bolden and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) will announce what they characterize as a “a bold, ambitious effort” to take two seemingly improbable launch systems and combine them into one even more improbable system. The Strato-SLS (SSLS) will enable even bigger payloads into orbit, as the 5 SSMEs and twin advanced boosters won’t ignite until the Stratolaunch plane brings the rocket to an altitude of nearly 70,000 feet. This architecture will not just boost the SLS’s initial capability from 70 mT to 200 mT, but will ensure a rapidly reusable system that can launch every month for under $100 million. Sen. Shelby, along with Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Administrator Bolden have volunteered to ride the first crewed launch of the SSLS in 2017. “We can save the taxpayers money on training since 2 out of the 3 crew have already been trained and have flown together” Bolden is prepared to state. OMB sources who declined to be identified eagerly assured NASAWatch that countless taxpayer dollars will be fully wasted on this national strategic need. Indeed, OMB has already taken to calling the SSLS the “Space Goose”. Larger image

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻

42 replies on “NASA To Unveil The Space Goose”

  3. I’m normally pretty optimistic, but this has got to be a bad joke, right?

    “will ensure a rapidly reusable system that can launch every month for under $100 million.“

    Now, where have I heard that before?

      1. I realized it was a joke; the point I tried to make (and failed) is that it is a bad one.  In my biased world anything involving SLS is a bad joke.  Besides, I would have nominated Rep. Frank Wolf as the first passenger.

        I never forget April Fools Day.  It was my parents’ wedding anniversary, which perhaps explains a lot.

  5. I gather the new rocket has an Isp of 10 billion.

    Isp = Instigate Supreme Presidential ambitions

    The launch vehicle is to be named after girls.  This is the First April.

  6. What time zone are you in?  It’s March 31 on the East Coast of the US.  Shouldn’t you wait until tomorrow to post this?

  8. …and, if a runway incursion should prompt the pilot to opt for a rejected takeoff, the underwing SLS will demonstrate not only the worlds first horizontal launch abort system, but also clear the incursion.

    Good one Keith, keep’em coming 🙂

  9. At first, I thought the SLS was a complete waste of money, but this new concept makes it crystal clear that we need SLS.

    Thanks for this important news, Keith.

    1. Yes, and the project will be designed and developed at the NASA Bejing Space Center (NBSC) office. Space X will be directed to turn over all their designs and plans to NASA Bejing for further review of future missions. Grin. Did you get your Javascript update notice? I got mine and it’s a doozie.

  10. Strato-launch’s  website has been up over a year, they have already brought two 747s to get the parts for the launch vehicle and a big enough hanger to build it, and have amicably separated from Space X so Space X won’t build the rocket. It looks like they are serious and more than a sponge for government money.  Sure I am skeptical, but I was skeptical for Space X as well and look how great they have done.

    As a pilot, I have once flown as high as 15,000 feet and thought how much better it would be to have a rocket start with both velocity and altitude. Thanks for reporting on this Keith.

  11. I’m just waiting for the announcement that, lacking a funded mission, the first couple SLS flights will launch PongSats.

    LOTS of PongSats.

  12. If this is an April Fools article, I would have liked it better if you had made fun of Orbital who had fairings fail twice than a company that is trying to do something different in the wake of decades in LEO.  Sadly, with Bolden and NASA Public Affairs, it is not always easy to distinguish an April Fools story from any other day of the year. For verification, just look at a week of Keith’s articles.

  14. Folks:

    I Started doing the math in my head, then… @#$%! Got me! 🙂

    Happy April Fools day!
     
    tinker

  16. Lol! Brilliant Keith, but careful, the iCade iPad arcade cabinet started off as an April Fools joke, then they made one….

  24. Ohh: Sen. Shelby, along with Sen. Bill Nelson Administrator Bolden
    have volunteered to ride the first crewed launch of the SSLS in 2017. It’s now clear. :))

    2. Tinker,

      I won’t hazard an opinion on this one, but as a rule I tend to discard anything that relies on superconductors but makes no mention of what particular superconducting material is in use and completely neglects to mention the power requirements for superconductor cooling in the input/output numbers.  At least with the Xenon designs the whole world has seen data on working (long-firing) examples in use, the best peer review there is.

      I don’t deny the possibility of a reactionless drive, in fact I’ve always agreed with John Campbell, who said long ago that we’d need something better than rockets before we could really begin to explore the solar system, let alone the stars; but I don’t think anybody has a working “space drive” yet, or it would have been reported in hundreds of magazines and discussed on thousands of web sites, and certainly NASA’s NIAC would have been working on it.

      Steve

      1. Steve:

        I wouldn’t have bothered with this if the Chinese weren’t so interested in it. Seems to me they’d have a lot more to lose if they published bogus theories. Wouldn’t the Chinese space program thoroughly vet the idea to gain such a strategic advantage?

        Apparently superconductors aren’t necessary if you want ion drive like performance. For station keeping for communications satellites, a drive like this would really extend their lifetimes.

        So far, I’ve found nothing that debunks the emdrive at the theoretical level (If it doesn’t contradict Einstein, it must be right!).

        tinker

        1. What? It contradicts Einstein at just about every step, while violating conservation of momentum and energy. Shawyer does things like mixing up reference frames and assuming an absolute rest frame. He even specifically claims it is equivalent to an electrical machine, and can be operated in reverse to convert acceleration into energy. This means one stood on end on Earth’s surface would make an infinite energy machine (or an infinite energy sink, if turned upside down).

  27. Nice touch adding Shelby.  You almost had me.  Let me give you a pointer from a native Alabamian.  The part that gave it away was the line about Shelby volunteering to ride.  The good Senatuh doesn’t participate in such things.  He will, however, make it abundantly clear that projects which are named after him tend to have much less difficulty securing funding.  If anyone ever proposes a “Shelby-Strato Launch System” within his earshot, it’s a done deal.

  28. What’s bad is that the way things have been going lately the story at first doesn’t sound all that far fetched, just more of the crazy same. At first I thought, “So they are now redesigning SLS for Stratolaunch? Par for the course!” YUCK

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