If you cherish flights on huge planes like the A380 or 747, you shouldn’t get your hopes up for a ride on the real champion, the Stratolaunch, which had its first flight last week, flying over the Mojave Desert for 2.5 hours—at a speed of only 189 miles per hour.
The huge craft, which looks a bit like two planes glued together, is intended to someday launch satellites into space without the cost involved with big rocket launches. Built by Stratolaunch systems, its wingspan is longer than a football field, and weighs over 250 tons.
The company, which also uses rockets for launches, was founded by the late Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft.
