Dragon Mission
As for the Dragon aircraft, it has an interesting launch characteristic: It needs help. Like a WWII glider, the Dragon is towed up. In this instance, by a converted surplus Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. For kick-starting the ramjets, add two large surplus Jet-Assisted-Take-Off units (JATO’s) mounted to each side of the airframe.
This also explains the 15,000-foot runway built by Musk Enterprises, to which a large crowd showed up on launch day, even though it wasn’t officially announced to the public. Like in the days of Apollo and Space Shuttle launches, it was something like a patriotic, once-in-a-lifetime, big-game tailgating atmosphere. What’s better than a Texas beef barbeque on a perfect day?
At 35,000 feet, the C-17 released the ship. The Dragon then took a breath-taking nose-dive, ignited the JATO units, injected an alcohol-nitro-kerosene fuel mix into the ramjets and the Dragon came alive. After the JATO’s were dropped over the Gulf of Mexico, the ship climbed to perform its first carbon-capture mission.
The Dragon flies continuously. Never lands. Well, at least not so far — knock on wood. It's unknow whether the large aircraft will land safely. A good use for a huge runway perhaps, but the Dragon and its’ future to-be-sister Dragons, were never really intended to land since it has a huge supply of readily available fuel in the sky. Even more, the ram-jet engines are so simple, they are nearly maintenance free when compared with a typical jet engine. The actual termination plan is to evacuate the crews, use remote control and ditch the Dragon in the Gulf of Mexico — why risk a pilot or crew? But that won't happen for a while.
The Dragon flies — in the normal sense — between carbon streams, but inside the carbon stream only in the nominal sense. In other words, the carbon stream gases don’t act like air, so the Dragon then performs more like a missile. It operates at 70,000 to 120,000 feet up, with computer help, sucking in and using what it can and compressing the rest into holding tanks. Thus, the 14 compressors onboard.
Between missions, like now, it’s smooth, quiet, and restful. The Dragon comes down to 60,000 feet and cruises through ‘normal’ atmosphere. The ramjets can use computer-controlled fuel pumps and maintain a smooth, quiet multi-pulse thrust, and travel anywhere from Mach 2 to Mach 5.
Resupply and rotating crews are done by docking with a supply jet and utilizing shuttle pods.
Shuttle Pod Prelaunch
Today, I'll be jettisoned from the Dragon in a shuttle pod, controlled by A.I. and ground control to avoid both toxic carbon streams and unfriendly airspaces.
Coming back to Texas in a shuttle pod is like sitting in a self-driving car or TeslaTaxi-Jet™, just sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s very cool. The little pod glides down and lands on the giant Musk Texas airstrip. It basically coasts in like the 1980's space shuttle, but it has an emergency system, based off jet aircraft ejection systems, that will launch it to 350 feet, where it deploys a parachute from the nose for a safe landing. So far, it’s never been used – again, knock on wood.
I drop in one hour, and look forward to getting home, sleeping in my own bed. The drop crew wants to do a standard briefing: safety procedures, route, landing ET, etc. and what to expect on the ground. They asked what my call-sign was: Bird Dog. The crewman rolled his eyes. I looked at his name tag: “Duck”, so I won that round.
Wish me luck.