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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."
This spaceplane is still in the concept phase. They're not even planning to build it until the 2020's. Right now it's all just fund-raising and hype. All this review says is "Well, it COULD work."
In fact, this thing has apparently just the latest version of a spaceplane that has been in the development stage since 1982 (no, that's not a mistake--1982), and has already went through quite a bit of government and private money, with little more to show for it than some concept art and promises. Add to this the fact that they're emphasizing cause-du-jour selling points like "the environmentally-friendly green rocket" in their promotional literature, and I'm a little skeptical.
More power to them if they can build it though. The real first test will come when they're supposed to actually build a test engine this summer. Deliver something to me in the real world that actually works, and you'll get my attention.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
No one's thought of this til now?
The Skylons were created by man.
They rebelled.
They evolved.
There are many copies.
And they have a plan.
Or are just making shit up as they go. It's kind of hard to tell.
Now was can get 15x as much space junk for our $
the Skylon will drop the cost of delivering payloads to orbit from $15,000 per kilo to $1000.
If you weigh your payload in pounds, do you have to pay in Euros?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And get funding from the Sy-Fy channel!
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I couldn't help but to read the article with interest and a healthy dose of Moller Skycar Skepticism. The concept art work looks like something out of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics. The "details" of the engine include "Esa's technical staff have witnessed this "secret technology" on the lab bench and can confirm it works." Wow, something that works in the lab. I'm not impressed.
Furthermore, it promises to cut the launch cost of payload from $15k/kilo to $1k/kilo. I call BS. That's just marketing hype. Cutting it by 20% or 30% would be revolutionary. Cutting it by a few hundred percent is just pipe dreams by people looking for VC capital.
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I've been hearing about an engine that would use Jet/Rocket hybrid since the mid-70's. I believe it was even proposed for early concepts of the space shuttle. But NASA could never make it work.
NASA couldn't even make the Aerospike work either, and that was supposed to revolutionize space travel in the mid-80's.
So will all the brilliant minds at NASA and our defense contractors, they couldn't make anything work except for some really backwards solid-rocket boosters.
After we lost our German scientists, America went back to black powder and cannon to launch rockets.
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.
*IF* (and that's a big if) the ESA can make this thing work, it will truly put us far behind the Europeans, the Chinese and the Russians. W00T! America Number 4!!!!
Heck, we might even be behind the Indians and the Japanese by then as well.
Our last Shuttle flight is July 8th. I'm marking that day on my calendar, as it marks America's official slide into 3rd world status. We are not the superpower we used to be, and as long as we're internally bickering over healthcare, abortion, and whether god controls the tides, we never will be a superpower again.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Engage!
You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier to do.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
HOTOL, it just won't go away.
http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20110405
Falcon 9 heavy will be $1k per pound in 2013 ( ok, $2.2k per kg )
Though it certainly takes a lot of fuel and oxidizer to get a rocket through the thick lower atmosphere up to say 90,000 feet, it still takes a tremendous amount of energy to get from 90,000 feet and 3000-4000 mph to escape velocity of 17,500 mph. And that last bit would have to use oxidizer brought with since the air is quite thin at the edge of space.
From what I learned in physics class, the cheapest way to get through the thick atmosphere is to go straight up. Taking the airplane route consumes a lot more energy (several times more), though the hope is that the air can be used as an oxidizer so you don't have to carry O2. But I'm very skeptical that anything better than a rocket will ever be found, at least that uses chemical reactions as a means of propulsion.
Of course, at $1000 a kilo we're looking at $100,000 per person per flight,
That's $320,000, American.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Pic here: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mpBGa4P5jUo/TL42QnvUzkI/AAAAAAAAFuk/B4g6Bp2czH8/s1600/altrusia7.jpg
I call the major difference between government and private ventures such as this the "pick a lane" problem. In Private, they typically pick a lane early on and stick with it until it fails. In government sponsored projects, they use multiple pathways approach, and fund them beyond their failure. This is the primary reason why Private Enterprise succeeds where government sponsored approach fails.
And if you look at SpaceX's approach, they picked a design early on, and have stuck with it. They are much closer to suborbital flight than anyone else. And they will get to full production while others are still in design mode.Right now, they are in beginning stages of getting certified for commercial flights. Government can't compete here, the approach is all wrong.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Could use two separate engines, one jet and one rocket. Bonus points for putting them on two planes and allow separation. Oh wait... that has already been done.
>> "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.
I think well get it cheap enough that drug lords from around the world will be able to deliver directly to homes by space plane. It sure beats subs/ultra-lites, and good old ground transport.
At $1000/kilo, isn't that acceptable transport fee for some drugs? (Assuming 100% success) These people are now constructing submarines!!
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We have received reports that a Skylon attack is underway.
Skylons aren't just Cylons pronounced funny. They're Cylons created by Skynet.
Seriously, that has to be the most dooms-day-ish, worst-conceived name ever.
Ariane 5, until recently, was the most successful commercial launcher.
However, the rocket is getting a little long in the tooth and things are hotting up with Space X getting into their stride.
While TFA states otherwise, Reaction Engines Ltd are most likely aiming for the forthcoming ESA review and investigation into a replacement for Ariane 5. It would be a long shot, both the UK's dismal track record in funding space flight at a national level and France's well proven track record are major hurdles. But I suspect this would be Skylon's best bet, nobody else has the spare billion or 5 to spend on the project.
I'd hardly call the concept "Revolutionary". They messed around with similar concepts during the 70/80s, I've even seen concept sketches of a space shuttle with turbines attached to the sides. It simply wasn't considered near term enough at the time. And "precoolers" have been used on practically every rocket motor since WWII, the only real difference here is that they're adding another part to the precooler, the heat exchangers in the intake manifold instead of only around the reaction chamber. The only really new concept that I can figure is whatever "secret method" they're using to keep ice from building up on the intake heat exchangers (probably sonic/chemical/coating based). Don't get me wrong, I hope it works magnificently, but while I do believe they're the first ones to start fabricating the components, they're not the first ones to think up the concept.
This is Skylon, not HOTOL, so no it hasn't been in development since 1982. Different vehicle, different engine (the original one was classified by the UK government).
The statement 'they are not planning to build it until the 2020's' is flat out false. They are planning to have it operational in 2020. This may be optimistic, but what you said does not accurately reflect their statements.
Environmentally friendly is not a touchy-feely issue either; if spaceflight is going to go from long-term experiment to routine flight, its emissions need to be taken into account. Concern has already been raised about the effects of releasing particles from hybrid motors at high altitude. Right now it doesn't matter, but IF we are entering an era of mass spaceflight, it will.
A review isn't the same as the test, no, but I can tell you from first hand experience that ESA engineers are not easily impressed. They will have given REL a proper grilling before coming out and saying that they think this concept is viable.
Whilst I have no doubt the mostly US-based /. audience will probably not have much respect for ESA, please bear in mind that despite a budget half the size, and a lack of manned capability for political reasons, its cooperates with NASA on engineering matters as an equal these days.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
And the Harrier jump jet. Will American jealousy scupper this project too ?
"News for nerds" and none of the Cylon puns got modded up? I'm going to Gizmodo!
NASA scrapped this idea a long time ago, but I think it was just for lack of funding, not because it was a bad idea.