British Spaceplane Skylon Could Revolutionize Space Travel (ieee.org)

MarkWhittington writes: The problem of lowering the cost of sending people and cargo into low Earth orbit has vexed engineers since the dawn of the space age. Currently, the only way to go into space is on top of multistage rockets which toss off pieces of themselves as they ascend higher into the heavens. The Conversation touted a British project, called Skylon, which many believe will help to address the problem of costly space travel. According to IEEE Spectrum, both BAE Systems and the British government have infused Skylon with $120 million in investment.

Comments

Stupid article

[BradMajors]

Skylon's idea is to use oxygen from the air, rather than taking the oxygen as fuel for the initial part of the ascent. A well known idea that is being worked on elsewhere.

Re:So where's their spaceplane?

[quintessencesluglord]

If I remember correctly, Reaction Engines got severely dicked by the UK government (pulling funding declaring the engines covered by the Official Secrets Act), effectively ending private development.

The design was promising but had teething issues, and has been carried on as a garage project all these years.

That they've managed to get this far given the hurdles they've had to overcome is nothing short of astounding.

Re:When I see "could" in a headline ...

[Keith Henson]

I have followed Skylon for several years now. The engines are very interesting, in fact, the whole design, including the wings is very cool. The wings take the gravity load off, which for something that takes that long to get to orbit is quite an advantage.

They actually get more energy out of the hydrogen than they would get from just burning it. The reason is that they run the compressor on the temperature difference between ram air and the LH2 flowing to the engines. Burning hydrogen gives about 50 kWh/kg, it takes 20 kWh/kg to make it into a liquid.

You might note that everyone who has been given the full inside information, including the USAF, agrees that it will work as a SSTO. If anyone wants to build power satellites, Skylon is the only thing that is likely to get the cost to where power satellites could undercut coal.