virgin galactic has a sister company known asa virgin galactic has a sister company known as a virgin principle, but the plane is not nearly as big. it is about its converted 7117 that would also launch a rocket from mid air and put satellite into orbit. it's not quite as heavy duty as this plane, but it could be a significant competitor for the applications that stratolaunch is looking at. just lastly, we mentioned in the introduction, this was largely funded by microsoft co—founder, paul allen, what was the idea behind him getting involved in this? yes, his dream was that this would open up more dream was that this would open up m ore a ccess dream was that this would open up more access to space, that's the big vision that he had. and he envisioned developing a new type of rocket engine and a whole line of rockets. after his death last october, stratolaunch has had to refocus on getting this plane flying. the big question is, what is the next step? we will watch closely. a very impressive and very expensive enterprise all round. alan boyle, thank you for giving us your insight. tha

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we're doing, and the general may add to this some, but we have contracted, for example, with virgin galactic to launch off of the -- under the wing of the 747. we are working with a number of very small, very innovative companies on different ways to launch and launch flexibility and reconstitution from unexpected places is one of the ways in which we keep our adversaries guessing. >> general? >> we made a lot of progress in the last few years of taking advantage of that. one of the strengths of the proposals before you is the structure we're proposing will allow us to better leverage all of the industry that this country has to offer. we've struggled a little bit with the commercial sector in particular. we've struggled with the smaller companies figuring out how to do that. the air force recently made huge progress in walking down that bath. -- path. i think space development can work down to commercial leverage. the proposal gets after a lot of things you're talking about. >> thank you. >> thank you. on behalf of the senator. >> thank you. thank you for the witnesses for being here. thank