Tag: Paul Allen

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Stratolaunch’s space plane ambitions rise again

Stratolaunch plane
An aerial view shows the Stratolaunch airplane outside its hangar in May 2017. The twin-fuselage aircraft is the world’s largest airplane, measured by wingspan. (Stratolaunch Photo)

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch space venture is returning to an idea it’s long mulled over: launching payloads, and possibly people, into orbit on a reusable space plane.

The concept, known internally as “Black Ice,” would involve the midflight launch of a space shuttle-like vehicle from what will be the world’s largest airplane. It was mentioned today in The Washington Post, in an excerpt adapted from Post reporter Christian Davenport’s forthcoming book, “The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos.”

“I would love to see us have a full reusable system and have weekly, if not more often, airport-style, repeatable operations going,” Allen told Davenport during a Seattle interview.

In a statement emailed to GeekWire, Stratolaunch confirmed its interest in the concept.

“Our vision for Stratolaunch is to offer a broad spectrum of capabilities from small, medium, to fully reusable,” the company said. “Black Ice is an aspirational concept we are exploring; however, no decisions have been made yet.”

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Stratolaunch’s giant airplane picks up the pace

Stratolaunch taxi test
Stratolaunch’s twin-fuselage airplane undergoes taxi tests at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port. Note the size of the pickup truck that’s traling the plane. (Stratolaunch Photo)

Stratolaunch Systems, the space launch venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, says it put its super-duper-sized carrier plane through a fresh round of revved-up taxi tests last weekend at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port.

The six-engine, 385-foot-wide aircraft, nicknamed Roc, is the world’s largest airplane as measured by wingspan. It’s designed to carry up rockets for high-altitude launches in midflight.

Stratolaunch has said orbital launches could begin in the 2019-2020 time frame if the test program goes well.

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Stratolaunch’s mega-plane gets first taxi test

Stratolaunch plane
The world’s biggest airplane taxis along the Mojave Air and Space Port’s runway during a ground test conducted by Stratolaunch. For a size comparison, note the pickup truck driving between the plane’s twin fuselages. (Paul Allen via Twitter)

That’s one more not-so-small step for Stratolaunch’s giant airplane: The space venture’s founder, software billionaire Paul Allen, is showing off a 34-second video of the twin-fuselage aircraft as it aced its first taxi test on the runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Allen said the test was conducted Dec. 16, marking a rare outing for the plane that’s destined to serve as a flying platform for launching rockets into space. In a Dec. 17 tweet, he promised that there’d be “more to share soon.”

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Robots are readied to study Antarctic ice shelves

Antarctic robot research team
Members of the research team stand on the deck of the R/V Robertson with two Seaglider drones on the left, plus a drone and a float on the right. The team includes UW’s Jason Gobat, Craig Lee, Knut Christianson and James Girton, plus Spencer Reeder of Paul G. Allen Philanthropies. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Researchers from the University of Washington and Columbia University are getting ready for an unprecedented months-long campaign to study Antarctica’s ice shelves from the ocean below, with backing from billionaire philanthropist Paul Allen.

The results are expected to lead to a better understanding of how ice retreats, and how climate change could affect the loss of polar ice sheets and the resulting rise in sea levels.

It’s a high-risk mission — but in this case, robots, not humans, are taking the risk.

“All of these instruments could be lost underneath the ice shelf,” said Spencer Reeder, director of climate and energy for Paul G. Allen Philanthropies.

Reeder said that’s a big reason why Allen, one of Microsoft’s co-founders, is funding the expedition to the tune of just under $2 million. The risks are too high for the traditional funders of polar research, but Allen’s backing could help UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory prove that its devices can do the job.

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Biomedical labs get $10 million boosts

Jay Shendure
University of Washington geneticist Jay Shendure will direct one of the newly created Allen Discovery Centers. (Allen Institute Photo)

The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to speed the pace of biomedical breakthroughs, is adding two more research centers to its lineup – including one at the University of Washington.

Each of the Allen Discovery Centers will receive $10 million in grants over the next four years, with the potential for a total $30 million boost over eight years.

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Allen Frontiers Group boosts biomedicine

Molecular structure
Three Allen Distinguished Investigator projects focus on epigenetics, or how genes are turned on and off. Researchers will study how the 3-D shape of the genome and the presence of regulatory molecules impact the behavior of cells.(Molekuul.be via Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group)

Epigenetics, aging and microbial evolution: Those are the latest words in biomedical research for the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, backed up with $7.5 million in awards for five teams of scientists.

Each of the teams will receive $1.5 million over the next three years to boost early-stage studies that have the potential to yield medical breakthroughs.

“It’s part of Paul Allen’s growing commitment to the idea that this is the century of bioscience,” Tom Skalak, executive director of the Seattle-based Frontiers Group, told GeekWire. Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, launched the Frontiers Group last year with a $100 million commitment.

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Stratolaunch airplane emerges from its lair

Stratolaunch plane
An aerial view shows the Stratolaunch airplane outside its hangar for the first time. The twin-fuselage aircraft is the world’s largest airplane, measured by wingspan. (Stratolaunch Photo)

Six years after Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen started up Stratolaunch Systems, the billionaire’s air-launch venture brought its humongous twin-fuselage airplane out in the open for the first time today.

“Stratolaunch came out of the hangar for fuel testing,” Allen said in a tweet that featured an aerial photo of the plane. More pictures were posted to Stratolaunch’s website.

Stratolaunch CEO Jean Floyd said the plane’s emergence from its hangar at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port was part of a “major milestone in its journey toward providing convenient, reliable and routine access to low Earth orbit.”

The plane is designed to carry up to three Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rockets at a time into the air, and then set them loose to launch payloads into orbit.

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Paul Allen rebrands his airplane showcase

Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum
An artist’s conception shows the expansion of the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum. (Flying Heritage Illustration)

Cross Seattle billionaire Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection off your list of local attractions, and put a new name in its place: the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum.

The rebranding, announced on March 24, will be followed by an expansion in the museum’s offerings and the construction of a third hangar to house its growing collection of aircraft and military vehicles.

The additional hangar at Everett’s Paine Field will boost the museum’s current 57,000 square feet of exhibit space by another 30,816 square feet, the museum said.

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$50 million gift boosts UW computer science

Paul Allen with T-shirt cannon
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen shoots purple Allen School T-shirts into the crowd at a University of Washington celebration of the school’s establishment.  (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

There’s no question that an extra $50 million will raise the University of Washington’s profile in computer science and engineering – but how high can it rise? How worried should MIT and Carnegie Mellon University be?

Here’s the message from Ed Lazowska, who’s marking his 40th year on the UW faculty and now holds the university’s Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering: Don’t worry, but make room.

“The goal here is, instead of there being a Top 4 program, to be a Top 5 program, and for us to be the fifth,” Lazowska said. “And we’re very close to that.”

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Paul Allen sees a ‘golden age’ in tech

Paul Allen
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen speaks with GeekWire behind the scenes at the University of Washington. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

By Todd Bishop and Alan Boyle

If Paul Allen were just starting out in computer science today, he might not know where to start. Robotics, artificial intelligence, computer vision, augmented reality, biological systems — the list of topics that fascinate him is practically endless.

“It’s amazing,” Allen said, marveling at the advances in technology and the potential to change the world. “Kids these days have so much more computer power, so much better tools at their disposal. It really is a golden age of what’s possible.”

The Microsoft co-founder sat down for a conversation with GeekWire after making a special appearance on March 9 at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The UW announced that Allen is donating $40 million to its computer science program, and Microsoft is adding $10 million in honor of Allen to bring the total contribution to $50 million — a game-changing endowment for an institution that helps to fuel the regional economy with technology talent.

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