Aero Spacelines Guppies  A fish that flies  Aero Spacelines
Guppies  Feature Article from Hemmings Motor News  March, 2013 -
Terry Shea  Since the beginning, NASA and its congressional
overseers have seen to it to bring home the bacon to all 50
states, making sure that their billions are spread throughout
the land. This may make for good pork-barrel politics, but
complicated logistics. Getting rocket boosters from California
factories to Florida launch pads in the early 1960s required as
much as 25 days by slow-moving cargo ship through the Panama
Canal.  Enter Aero Spacelines, Inc. and the Pregnant Guppy. At
the time it was introduced it was the largest cargo plane by
lifting capacity and volume in the world. Based on a lengthened,
four-engined Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, the Pregnant Guppy
incorporated a bulging, extended upper fuselage section that was
just big enough to fit the Saturn V launch vehicle's third
stage. A five-meter section from the fuselage of one B377 was
used to extend an ex-Pan Am Stratocru