Spaceplane Concept Receives Euro Funding 193
draevil writes "BBC News reports that the novel "Skylon" spaceplane design of British firm Reaction Engines has received funding to proceed with its proof-of-concept design for an air-breathing rocket engine.
If successful, the Sabre rocket engine will be able to take the Skylon with 12 tonnes of cargo from a runway, to orbit and then back to that runway without the need for disposable components or a piggy-back ride on a larger aircraft.
Should the design prove viable, it could see first use within ten years."
Issues in a spaceplane (Score:1, Interesting)
Ahhh No. The mach numbers become useless when there are a few molecules of air per Sq.Meter.
It switches to feet/second.
However, the what could be a limiting factor for rocket-powered spaceplane could be:
1) Gravity: Or lack of it in space. this will require a toothpaste kinda arrangement that can squeeze fuel into the rocket engines.
2) Fuel: Unlike Saturn or Proton rockets, this is a spaceplane. So the fuel tank cannot be meters long and meters wide. it must be compact like a gasoline tank, yet be able to contain ALL fuel for launch from high-altitudes and return. Compression matters a lot. Oxygen can be compressed but cannot be super-cooled. Probably made into a mushy liquid/gel formation which releases gas when de-compressed.
3) Re-Entry radar and guidance: Unlike the spaceshuttle, the spaceplane is much smaller in size, so it has to depend on both inertial guidance AND GPS. Why? GPS is screwed it needs inertial.
Re:About Time! (Score:4, Interesting)
Cutting NASA Budgets? NASA got an extra billion in the Obama stimulus package.
You are correct. However I was thinking at the time I posted about proposed cuts to the manned spaceflight program. I know they haven't been enacted yet or anything (to my knowledge), but it just depresses me that I was born in the '50s and grew up with a vibrant manned spaceflight program and went on to work in aerospace. I was really looking forward to seeing humanity progress to at least moon and Mars habitats before I died, along with all the wealth and progress it would bring the US and the world.
Strat
Re:Maybe it's an air-breathing rocket engine? (Score:3, Interesting)
They are describing a hybrid device, that uses air -- which makes it a jet -- in the lower atmosphere, and a rocket higher up where there is less oxygen. Which is probably good engineering, if they have it halfway right! But the article is shit... because it simply isn't right to call a thing something that it clearly is not. A mammoth was never a kangaroo. Bush never really held to "classical Republican" values. Your ass is not a hole in the ground.
Saying it is an "air-breathing rocket" is (as I mentioned elsewhere) like saying a hybrid automobile is an "electricity-eating gasoline engine". It's not just a vague description, it is just plain false.
Re:Maybe it's an air-breathing rocket engine? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just the thing for the solar power array (Score:3, Interesting)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/20/0149254 [slashdot.org]
If it works, then maybe the power guys will have what they need to take their stuff up.
But it's a very big 'if' IMHO...the current shuttle show the tremendous problems associated with 'reusable' spacecraft, and even then they launch it conventionally.
Re:They are going to a lot of trouble.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not that they're trying to save oxidiser, they're trying to save propellant of all kinds.
The problem with rockets is that you have to run at full exhaust speed at all times, and that costs fuel, because a high exhaust speed implies a lot of energy. But at low vehicle speeds, a high exhaust speed just means you're throwing exhaust backwards very fast- you really want the exhaust speed and the vehicle speeds to be similar. That's how turbofans work, and why A380s don't use turbojets or rockets.
If you don't run a rocket at full exhaust speed, then it costs you propellant mass to get the same thrust (but saves energy/*fuel*), but propellant is the one thing you can't waste when you're trying to reach orbit.
Really the skylon idea uses nitrogen as a reaction mass, it sucks in the air, burns it with hydrogen and then chucks the whole lot out the back.
Once you get to about Mach 5, the rocket efficiency is up about 60% and then you can just do the burn for orbit.