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The Brits have engineered some amazing propulsion over the years and they have some really cool tech in this engine. It's hard to see how the Skylon vehicle wil

The Brits have engineered some amazing propulsion over the years and they have some really cool tech in this engine. It's hard to see how the Skylon vehicle will be able to compete with Spacex on cost.

stcredzero 9y ago
The Brits have engineered some amazing propulsion over the years They also gave one example away over a game of billiards. http://www.tdpri.com/threads/for-aircraft-enthusiast-how-a-game-of-pool-led-to-the-most-produced-jet-of-all-time.419915/ http://www.tdpri.com/threads/for-aircraft-enthusiast-how-a-g...
- theoh 9y ago
  See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission
walrus01 9y ago
Given current finances, they're working on just the engine. The financial resources needed to research, design, prototype and build a single stage ground-to-space (LEO) spaceplane are way beyond them. Only the largest of aerospace companies such as US based defence contractors and Airbus or EADS/Astrium would be capable. Basically imagine the entire program development cost of an A-12/SR-71 or X-15, but far more complicated, and re-implemented adjusted for inflation in the year 2020 starting from a clean sheet of paper. Many billions of dollars.
WilliamDhalgren 9y ago
Why? Its supposed to be significantly more efficient, given that its breathing air for launch which enables much higher specific impulse than anything a chemical rocket even could do, and it'd have the operational advantages of being a pure single stage to orbit skyplane, which SpaceX also can't do. Hard to imagine what else one could even want a launch system to do (except perhaps to be a nuclear turborocket ala http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C46Dt-X0V8c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C46Dt-X0V8c , if that were politically feasable). And you can hardly say that of anything SpaceX is doing, given that those are simply incremental improvements of existing rocketry tech. Presuming they ever manage to make it work (which is prob the big question), it should bring significantly more to cheap launch than SpaceX ever could on their current trajectory.
- rst 9y ago
  The question isn't whether they could reduce operating costs per launch vs. SpaceX. It's whether they could reduce them by enough to pay back the R&D costs, and the cost of building a much more complicated spacecraft than SpaceX's current line of boosters. (I wouldn't say that about SpaceX's planned ITS -- but that has capabilities that _Skylon_ can't touch; Skylon itself, last I checked, was never getting out of low Earth orbit, so even GTO comsats required a second stage mated to the payload in the cargo bay, a la the old Shuttle-Centaur plans.)
  - WilliamDhalgren 9y ago
    I don't exactly see what ITS brings to the table here, being a multi-stage rocket as anything else that puts stuff in GTO. But anyhow yeah - the physics should favor them by practically an order of magnitude, but if they can ever survive to reap any percentage of that potential - they could just as likely just go bust at any further point in r&d, and they don't seem to have either much funding nor are they advancing particularly rapidly...
    - rst 9y ago
      The spacecraft portion of ITS is being designed for interplanetary travel. Skylon, as I already said, is confined to Earth orbit, with the air-breathing space-plane portion confined to LEO. (It only gets stuff to GTO or GEO with the payload-bay booster, which is a purely conventional rocket.)
- 7952 9y ago
  The real question is why would you want to waste payload capacity hauling an aeroplane into orbit. Skylon uses that extra efficiency to haul extra components into space. Such as the wings, landing gear etc. Based on the rocket equation it will only have usable payload if the mass of the craft can be kept very low. This would require lots of new technology and materials. Even with a better engine that would be very difficult. The thing is that all that new technology could also be used by Spacex to improve a conventional rocket. And without the extra mass you would have have much higher payload. And the payload could be used by customers and not wasted on wings. The best way to use new engine is probably to strap it onto a conventional rocket. Less complex and more payload. And maybe that extra payload could allow second stage reuse. That would make things even more competitive.

stcredzero 9y ago

The Brits have engineered some amazing propulsion over the years They also gave one example away over a game of billiards. http://www.tdpri.com/threads/for-aircraft-enthusiast-how-a-game-of-pool-led-to-the-most-produced-jet-of-all-time.419915/ http://www.tdpri.com/threads/for-aircraft-enthusiast-how-a-g...

theoh 9y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission

walrus01 9y ago

Given current finances, they're working on just the engine. The financial resources needed to research, design, prototype and build a single stage ground-to-space (LEO) spaceplane are way beyond them. Only the largest of aerospace companies such as US based defence contractors and Airbus or EADS/Astrium would be capable. Basically imagine the entire program development cost of an A-12/SR-71 or X-15, but far more complicated, and re-implemented adjusted for inflation in the year 2020 starting from a clean sheet of paper. Many billions of dollars.

WilliamDhalgren 9y ago

Why? Its supposed to be significantly more efficient, given that its breathing air for launch which enables much higher specific impulse than anything a chemical rocket even could do, and it'd have the operational advantages of being a pure single stage to orbit skyplane, which SpaceX also can't do. Hard to imagine what else one could even want a launch system to do (except perhaps to be a nuclear turborocket ala http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C46Dt-X0V8c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C46Dt-X0V8c , if that were politically feasable). And you can hardly say that of anything SpaceX is doing, given that those are simply incremental improvements of existing rocketry tech. Presuming they ever manage to make it work (which is prob the big question), it should bring significantly more to cheap launch than SpaceX ever could on their current trajectory.

rst 9y ago
The question isn't whether they could reduce operating costs per launch vs. SpaceX. It's whether they could reduce them by enough to pay back the R&D costs, and the cost of building a much more complicated spacecraft than SpaceX's current line of boosters. (I wouldn't say that about SpaceX's planned ITS -- but that has capabilities that _Skylon_ can't touch; Skylon itself, last I checked, was never getting out of low Earth orbit, so even GTO comsats required a second stage mated to the payload in the cargo bay, a la the old Shuttle-Centaur plans.)
- WilliamDhalgren 9y ago
  I don't exactly see what ITS brings to the table here, being a multi-stage rocket as anything else that puts stuff in GTO. But anyhow yeah - the physics should favor them by practically an order of magnitude, but if they can ever survive to reap any percentage of that potential - they could just as likely just go bust at any further point in r&d, and they don't seem to have either much funding nor are they advancing particularly rapidly...
  - rst 9y ago
    The spacecraft portion of ITS is being designed for interplanetary travel. Skylon, as I already said, is confined to Earth orbit, with the air-breathing space-plane portion confined to LEO. (It only gets stuff to GTO or GEO with the payload-bay booster, which is a purely conventional rocket.)
7952 9y ago
The real question is why would you want to waste payload capacity hauling an aeroplane into orbit. Skylon uses that extra efficiency to haul extra components into space. Such as the wings, landing gear etc. Based on the rocket equation it will only have usable payload if the mass of the craft can be kept very low. This would require lots of new technology and materials. Even with a better engine that would be very difficult. The thing is that all that new technology could also be used by Spacex to improve a conventional rocket. And without the extra mass you would have have much higher payload. And the payload could be used by customers and not wasted on wings. The best way to use new engine is probably to strap it onto a conventional rocket. Less complex and more payload. And maybe that extra payload could allow second stage reuse. That would make things even more competitive.