Billionaires built these rockets and planes to reach the stars

Rocket men

When you've got a ton of cash, not even the sky is the limit. Billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were part of a generation that grew up reading science fiction, inheriting its sprawling vision of advanced technology and humanity as a space-faring civilization. Now, they've got the money to make it happen, and it's hardly surprising that they're dreaming of building really big rockets and colonizing Mars. 

Of course, a lot of it is less far-fetched than it sounds. For starters, their most immediate plans consist mostly of building rockets that will put satellites in orbit and deliver vital cargo to the International Space Station. Part of that is a result of how NASA operates today. The organization's 2020 budget request reveals the intent to rely even more on private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, opening the door to lucrative partnerships for these firms. 

It's true that Musk has made no secret of his plans to bring the human race to the Red Planet, even laying out details about the proposed rocket and timeline at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide in 2017. That said, SpaceX's bread-and-butter still revolves around securing contracts and launching valuable payloads, as it did last week with the Falcon Heavy. It can't ignore the importance of commercial launches, especially since those are exactly what will attract additional customers and further investment, both of which will provide the funds and revenue necessary to forge ahead with its more ambitious goals. 

It's not all government contracts and cargo deliveries though. Elsewhere, folks like Richard Branson are looking at something more light-hearted and fun – space tourism. Here's a look at the gargantuan crafts that some of the world's richest people have built. 

Falcon Heavy

In numbers...

• 70m tall
• 22,819kN of thrust at sea level (first stage)
• Capable of carrying 63,800kg of payload to low Earth orbit

Last week marked the second launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, which has the highest payload capacity of any launch vehicle currently in operation. To date, only the Saturn V moon rocket, which last flew in 1973, has delivered more payload to orbit. While not its maiden flight, the launch was still a huge milestone for the Falcon Heavy because it was its first ever commercial mission. 

While the first launch of the Falcon Heavy in February 2018 basically catapulted Musk's cherry red Tesla Roadster and a dummy driver called Starman into a joyride around the sun, the 11 April mission carried precious commercial cargo in the form of the Arabsat-6A telecommunications satellite. The Saudi Arabian satellite will reportedly deliver television, radio, internet, and mobile communications to customers in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, marking a triumphant mission for SpaceX. 

This was also the first time that the company has managed to successfully land all three cores back on Earth. The two side boosters returned to concrete landing pads on land, while the center core touched down on a drone ship, quirkily named Of Course I Still Love You, out in the Atlantic Ocean (unfortunately, it later tipped into the ocean while in transit to the Florida coast, but that's no fault of the landing itself). The first time around, SpaceX failed to stick the landing for the center core. 

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One of SpaceX's main selling points has been the ability to reuse its Falcon rockets. This helps lower the cost of spaceflight and makes it possible to fly more frequently. Moving forward, SpaceX says that the two side cores that landed will be reused for the next Falcon Heavy launch. Right from the outset, the Falcon Heavy was also designed to carry not just cargo, but also humans into space, potentially opening up the possibility of flying crewed missions to the Moon or Mars. 

The first stage is comprised of three cores and 27 Merlin engines in total. Each of the side cores, or boosters, is equivalent to the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, so SpaceX is really leveraging on a tried-and-tested design here. Meanwhile, the second stage has just one Merlin engine, again identical to its counterpart in the Falcon 9, which is responsible for sending the payload into orbit once the first-stage separates from the rocket. 

New Glenn

In numbers...

• 82m tall
• 17,100kN of thrust at sea level (first stage)
• Capable of carrying 45,000kg of payload to low Earth orbit

Blue Origin has the might of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos behind it. Its motto, Gradatim Ferociter, which is Latin for "Step by Step, Ferociously", accurately represents the company's attitude toward space flight. While SpaceX grabs most of the headlines with its successful landings, Blue Origin has generally taken a slower, more measured approach.

Still, the company has secured numerous firsts when it comes to rockets. In fact, Blue Origin actually filed a patent for a reusable rocket booster landing on a platform at sea in 2010, way before SpaceX's first successful landing of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket in December 2015. Blue Origin's New Shephard booster also touched down safely a month earlier in November, but that was during a suborbital test. In comparison, the Falcon 9 is an orbital rocket. 

The New Glenn is Blue Origin's version of a heavy-lift, orbital launch vehicle. Like the Falcon Heavy, the first-stage boosters are reusable – Blue Origin claims they can be used for at least 25 missions – setting up the two to compete with each other for customers. At the time of writing, New Glenn has secured multiple contracts with customers like OneWeb, Telesat, and Eutelsat.

The first stage is powered by seven reusable BE-4 LOX/LNG engines, while the second stage relies on two BE-3U engines that can be reignited. The BE-4 was designed by Blue Origin itself and is a liquid oxygen and liquefied nitrogen gas engine that is the most powerful US rocket engine developed since Rocketdyne's two-decade-old RS-68 engine, capable of up to 550,000 pounds of thrust. 

After the first stage separates from the rocket, it will fly back to Earth and land nearly 1,000km downrange on a moving ship at sea. The second stage then ignites, the fairing – the part of the nose cone that protects the craft as it moves through the atmosphere – separates, and the payload is delivered to orbit. In the meantime, the second stage also makes a re-entry over the ocean, but it is not intended to be reused. 

SpaceShipTwo

In numbers...

• 18.3m long with a wingspan of 8.3m
• 0.267kN of thrust
• Flies to a maximum altitude of 361,000 feet

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has somehow managed to combine both space tourism and scientific research. While both the Falcon Heavy and New Glenn have so far primarily focused on delivering commercial payloads into orbit (even though the Falcon Heavy is designed to carry humans as well), SpaceShipTwo is concerning itself with things like cabin design and customer experience. 

That's probably not surprising considering that Branson is also behind the Virgin Group, which includes the Virgin Atlantic airline. SpaceShipTwo is less rocket and more winged spacecraft. The newest SpaceShipTwo vehicle, dubbed the VSS Unity, can hold up to two crew members and six passengers. 

The VSS Unity is powered by a hybrid rocket motor, effectively combining elements of both solid and liquid rocket engines. Solid fuel rockets consist of a fuel and oxidizer that are mixed in a solid form, while liquid fuel engines have a similar mix in liquid form. However, while a solid fuel system is generally simpler and safer, it cannot be regulated or turned off. In comparison, a liquid fuel engine would let you control the flow of the fuel to the engine, so you can regulate the amount of thrust or turn it off as needed. With the hybrid engine, the rocket motor on the VSS Unity can be regulated and shut down safely at any point during the flight. 

The SpaceShipTwo system actually comprises the VSS Unity itself and a second craft called the WhiteKnightTwo. The latter is a four-engine, dual-fuselage jet aircraft that carries the VSS Unity up to an attitude of 50,000 feet, at which point it is launched into the air. After separation, the VSS Unity fires its engine for 70 seconds to accelerate to roughly 4,000km/h before the engine shuts down. However, the craft will still continue to coast higher, past even the Karman Line, which is the boundary between our atmosphere and outer space and also the point at which passengers are considered astronauts (it's not hard to see why many rich folks would pay for this). 

Once the craft reaches its highest altitude of roughly 361,000 feet, passengers will experience a brief five minutes of weightlessness and be able to see the curve of Earth and the blackness of space. Then comes the time to return, and the VSS Unity will reconfigure itself into its re-entry configuration. Virgin Galactic calls this a "feathering" design, and it involves rotating the wings and tail booms upward while still in space. This is called the "feathered" configuration, and it allows for the vehicle's stability and rate of deceleration to be controlled by aerodynamic forces. At a height of roughly 50,000 feet, the craft is once again "de-feathered" into a gliding configuration and landing gear is deployed for a touchdown on a regular runway. 

The VSS Unity has earned pilots Mark "Forger" Stucky and Frederick "CJ" Sturckow their commercial astronaut wings from the Federal Aviation Administration and also carried research payloads for NASA. According to the company, you can get a ticket on board for US$250,000 and more than 600 people have paid deposits to reserve a seat. 

Unfortunately, Virgin Galactic also has the unenviable reputation of actually having a record of fatalities during test flights. An early version of SpaceShipTwo, called the VSS Enterprise, broke up mid-flight and crashed, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.

But while SpaceShipTwo has its eye on space tourism and leisure, Branson isn't stopping there. In 2017, he spun out the part of Virgin Galactic that handles small satellite launches into a separate company called Virgin Orbit. Like Stratolaunch, Virgin Orbit is also looking to use a modified Boeing 747 to launch satellite-bearing rockets into orbit, and it aims to run its own test flight later this year. 

Roc

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In numbers...

• Wingspan of 117m
• Made from three Boeing 747s
• Carry up to 226,800kg in weight

Founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, a space enthusiast himself, Stratolaunch just conducted a successful first flight of the word's largest airplane. The Roc, as it's called, has a wingspan bigger than a football field and features twin fuselages and six jet engines. Its wingspan measures 117m, which also happens to be the same length as the International Space Station. It actually looks really similar to Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo craft, so it's probably no surprise that they serve similar functions.

Roc isn't intended to fly into space itself. Instead, it will launch rockets into orbit from a high altitude, an approach that is again somewhat similar to what the WhiteKnightTwo does. The catamaran-style airplane was repurposed from three Boeing 747s, which helped reduce manufacturing costs. Stratolaunch built it together with Scaled Composites, the same aerospace company that built Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipOne. 

It is powered by six Pratt & Whitney engines, which were originally designed for the 747. The 28-wheel landing gear from the 747 is preserved as well. Once the plane hits a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, the rocket's engines will ignite and carry it and its cargo into orbit. According to the company, the reinforced center wing will be able to support multiple launch vehicles weighing up to a total of 226,800kg. 

For its first flight, Roc flew for 2.5 hours over the Mojave Desert at altitudes up to 17,000 feet. It also achieved a maximum speed of over 300km/h, which allowed pilots to evaluate its performance and handling.

Stratolaunch's ambitions have changed over the years though. It originally planned to carry modified SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets into space, but that partnership didn't work out. Its new partner is Orbital ATK, a Northrop Grumman-owned firm which builds the Pegasus XL rocket, an air-launched model capable of taking small payloads into low Earth orbit. The company had also wanted to build its own rocket and engines, but it dropped that idea and laid off workers earlier this year. 

Now, it looks like its focus is on providing more ways to launch payloads into orbit. Only a few facilities can handle rocket launches, such as the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which means schedules will be hampered by long wait times and high demand. On the other hand, a plane like Roc could take off from a runway, so customers won't have to wait for a rocket facility to be available.

Here's the full takeoff and landing clip for your viewing pleasure:-

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