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Skylon Spaceplane Design Passes Key Review
gbjbaanb writes "A revolutionary UK spaceplane concept has been boosted by the conclusions of an important technical review. Skylon is a design for a spaceplane that uses engines that work as normal jets near the ground and switch to rocket propulsion in the upper atmosphere. The concept means the plane will not have to carry as much fuel and so will not need disposable stages. It is estimated (by its developers) that the Skylon will drop the cost of delivering payloads to orbit from $15,000 per kilo to $1000."
A few points:
1) Everyone else is still using capsules. Don't see how going back to using one ourselves means we're now "behind" the others.
2) The shuttle itself is little more than a glorified, odd-shaped capsule. It still depends on rockets to push it into space; and it has to basically be re-built between flights.
3) You're neglecting the work done by companies in the US. NASA isn't all we've got. Sure, virgin galactic and the others aren't there yet, but they're a hell of a lot closer than this piece of marketing -- and that's ALL this piece is; they haven't made anything yet, much less a working anything.
I honestly don't know much about the specifics of this project, but what you're describing is actually extremely common. Accordingly, you need to prove how what you're describing is so abnormal, to justify such a position.
Thus far, it sounds like a sparsely funded project which seems to be steadily moving forward on the merits of the design and the technical advancements which are required to justify progression of the project.
Realistically, sudden advancement of the project knowing full well the engines represent a massive technological hurdle, would flag a money sink. As is, unless you can indicate other reasons, it sounds like its progressing at the speed of dependent technology - which sounds like the exact opposite of a money sink.
>> "And now, while the ESA is moving forward, America is jumping backwards even more, going back to 60's Apollo-era capsules. And that's after a long development schedule while we're piggybacking on the Russians."
The Space Shuttle concept was designed in the late 1960. Aside from upgraded cockpit avionics much of the system is 60's era tech.
Take a position. Are we behind or not? Everyone is ahead of us (you say) yet the only other countries to launch men into space (Russia and China) have done so with capsules. China's capsile was a disposable single use system. The CEV is a re-usable system which finds close parity with the Soyuz.
The US using capsules again is an acknowledgment that strapping your vehicle and crew to the side of a rocket is more dangerous than placing them at the top. A capsule can be mission specific. A capsule can be redesigned much easier than modifying a space shuttle or place where a system wide impact study must be done. The Space Shuttle was a difficult system to upgrade for this reason. A capsule can have the latest system upgrades since it is self-contained. The Soyuz has gone through dozens revisions for this reason.
Aside from landing on a runway what was gained from the shuttle in a practical sense? Longer turnaround between missions? A small fleet a complex vehicles instead of a large inventory of simpler capsules? When safety is concerned, simple wins. The Russians launch men into space more often because they use a simpler system.
America really should never have been a superpower; it was an accident of history. The only reason America became a superpower is because of WWI and WWII; Europe was devastated in those two wars, and America got rich rebuilding them, as we were the only industrialized nation left standing (except maybe for Australia, but they didn't have much industrial capacity like America did).
Yes, it was also an accident of Geography that America was full of natural resources, farm-able land, and room to expand. And an accident of politics and colonialism that led to America's freedom of speech and religion which was a big early draw for immigration. But yea, if you discount the massive natural resources, the great natural protective barriers of the Oceans, the political climate that cause immigration, the policies that kept her out of European wars as long as possible, and the huge industrial base is used to help win those wars, I don't see why America ever should have become a super power. I mean, it's not even the Country with the most letters in it's name.