Key Test For Skylon Spaceplane Engine Technology 92
Ogi_UnixNut writes "The Skylon spaceplane is an ambitious project to develop a single-stage-to-orbit craft that can take off and land like a normal airplane. Part of this project requires an engine that can work both as a rocket engine and a normal air-breathing engine (a hybrid approach, essentially). This would reduce the amount of oxidizer required to send stuff into space, and thus greatly reduce the cost. Now, some key experimental parts of the engine have been built, and are to be tested in public at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK in July. The BBC has video of the cooling system being tested."
Re:Reaction Engines Ltd, SABRE Engine (Score:2, Insightful)
However, what would probably happen is that we'd end up handing it over the the USA as our leaders are too short sighted and too cheap to fund anything truly visionary or world beating.
At which point our leaders would promptly turn it over to venture capitalists, who would immediately strip the company of any and all value and sell what's left off for their own personal profit.
Re:I thought that was not the hard part.... (Score:5, Insightful)
STS didn't need to have air intakes that hang out in the breeze... that simple difference makes the engineering problems a whole lot more difficult.
I've worked in commercial and government space for nearly 30 years, and one thing I've learned is that most, nay almost every, new launch system idea that sounds promising and brilliant in the concept stage runs aground on shoals of engineering problems with the result of either grossly inflated cost and schedule, or catastrophic failure. Layman frequently underestimate how much of the technology space has been explored and found to be dead ends due to either unsurmountable technical difficulties or simple economics. Incremental materials improvements are the most common route to innovation, but they can only do so much to open up new avenues.
In other words, it's not always possible to identify technical risks early on. The history of launch systems is full of "oh, shits." The cliche "the devil is in the details" may very well have been coined by a rocket scientist.
That said, I wish them luck and good fortune. If there's a way that we haven't yet achieved of bumping up the payload fraction of conventional launch systems, this is it. Hybrid jet/rocket engine approaches are also one place where I believe the introduction of improved materials can be disruptive. REL may have found a new route to orbit, and I hope it works for them.