SPACEPLANES may one day lift off from the backs of huge seaplanes that skim
the ocean’s surface at half the speed of sound, say space scientists in Russia
and Japan.
The developers believe that the technology could be highly competitive with
traditional vertical take-off systems such as the space shuttle. The plan is to
mount a spaceplane on the back of a 1500-tonne, rocket-propelled seaplane, known
in Russia as an “ekranoplan”.
Flying just a few metres above the water, the ekranoplan rides along on the
cushion of air that forms under large flat objects near a surface, the “wing in…
