Ekranoplans are Russian “Ground Effect” planes, aircraft that rely primarily on the high pressure zone created underneath an aircraft flying very close to the ground, for lift, instead of from air flowing around it’s wings.
It’s a very efficient, though impractical, means of flight, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was the most stable launch platform for a space shuttle… But based on this pic, the Russians, at some point in the past, would apparently have disagreed vigorously with me…
www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/scariest-bus-ride.html
Wait. What does the scary bus ride have to do with this?
Agreed on the bus thing…
as far as the Ekranoplans… these would be good for movement of cargo across large salt flats or lakes.. maybe even oceans. The almost skim the water. And they tend to be huge
LOL the scariest bus ride just happened to be on the same page as the Ekranoplans… Methinks he was thinking that a space shuttle launch from an Ekranoplan would be the cosmonautical equivalent of a scary bus ride…
And I’d agree… LOL
From the design, I would supremely doubt this is a spaceplane launch platform. The plane on top appears to have a faceted design. I would suspect it’s meant to be a stealth plane launching platform. The big ekranoplan comes in skimming the ocean, under radar, and launches the stealth plane to attack targets. The stealth plane has the benefit of only having to carry the fuel needed to get back, and can be lighter to carry a larger weapons payload. The huge ekranoplan does the heavy lifting. That would be my guess, anyway, having only seen these photos.