credit Reaction Engines / caption: Skylon rendezvous with ISS
Reaction Engines' Skylon single stage to orbit vehicle is shown here in close proximity to the International Space Station. The UK SSTO is undergoing changes with greater payload bay detail, Hyperbola will make public more info soon
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credit Reaction Engines / caption: Skylon with personnel module approaches for docking
on October 22, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply
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you just forgot to say that it will be piloted by Flash Gordon... :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Gordon
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on October 23, 2009 9:51 AM | Reply
Skylon and Hotol which came from the same stable are CONs!
Liquification of air in flight is a technology that is 50 years off. Now India wants to copy it. Good luck.
Reminds me of the X-30 Aerospace Plane.
Gaetano is right, but more polite .. Flash Gordon it is.
on October 24, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply
Gabe Kampis is quite simply wrong as a visit to Reaction Engines' website would have informed him. The air in the SABRE engine is never liquid and apart from the heat exchangers all the technology required to build the engine is ready. The heat exchangers are the subject of the final stage of a technology programme, part funded by ESA, which will be completed in 2011.
The Indian system is not a copy but a different concept that separates the oxygen from the air and then liquifies it.
The X-30 used a Scramjet - different again!
on December 10, 2009 11:42 PM | Reply
Mark Hempsell,
It is good to shake the trees so good fruit may emerge. Mark is clearly with the program. Thanks.
My reference to the X-30 was not that it had the same engine but that it too was ahead of its' time. So are any hypersonic air-breathing launchers whether they liquify or not. The nearest we have come in this area are the hybrid 'ramjets' on the SR-71. Which did work most of the time.
Hotol, Skylon and the Indians clearly believe in the romance of 'black projects' coming to life but the age of Boffins is over. How about years of development including flying versions (and then V2.0, V3.0, etc).
Excuse me, I'm a skeptic. I don't even believe in Falcon 9 'til I see it.
A good rule of thumb for any significant new engine - no spare change from $1 Billion!