Its quite sad that we only built cool stuff in the past. We should have a new super cool space age craft to replace these.

Piggy backing is logical, the lift from the shuttle's wings make it essentially weightless at speed.

That was hilarious. In the movie the fired up the orbiter's thrust engines and toasted the piggyback jet. I watch that and wonder, where is the orbiter getting fuel from?

Yes, at a significantly increased speed.

It'd be easier if we had a realistic budget... :rolleyes:

This is NOT photo shopped :D
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/682...ntingpoint.jpg

It's unusual to see them mating this late in the year.

its hard to believe the plane can carry all that extra weight. The shuttle is not lighter than a full load of passengers and suitcases is it?

How much of a factor of safety do you really need?:D
Anything better than 1.00001 is good. ( unless I am either a) on board, or b0 directly under the intended flight path.

That was unrealistic. Piggybacking a fully-fueled shuttle, so that the scenario in the movie would be akin to a "shuttle-jacking"...

Are those European passengers or American passengers and are they carrying any coconuts?

Yes. That's part of what the "decline of the west" thread was about.

- Peter.

It didn't have the booster rockets or the big fuel tank. Babes too

Aside from moving the shuttle around, it was also used to flight test it out Edwards before it ever flew into space.

Shuttle Enterprise, free flight Test, ABC News, Aug 12, 1977 - YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCOyOvOw5c&feature=player_embedded

Those were the days.

I think the useful load is something like 400,000 pounds.


747-200

Gross Wt (pounds): 785000
Average Empty Wt (pounds): 363068


Shuttle Gross liftoff weight: 240,000 lb (109,000 kg) Empty weight: 172,000 lb (78,000 kg)
Maximum payload: 55,250 lb (25,060 kg)

Probably didn't have engines on it, I didn't notice.