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I'm 53 - I can remember news stories about HOTOL when I was in high school! Mind you - it would be fantastic to see this become a reality.

MadTimbo 8y ago
I am the same and can remember getting excited about it back in the day. I find it difficult to regain that excitement. This is especially true given the things that companies like SpaceX have achieved, let alone what they are working on.
bloopernova 8y ago
I was fairly young at the time but still remember _Tomorrow's World_ (A BBC TV show about science and inventions) talking about HOTOL. To ~6 year old me, raised on watching Thunderbirds, Star Trek and NASA launches, it felt great that we'd be getting our very own Shuttle. Much much older me loves messing around with scramjets and air-breathing rockets in Kerbal Space Program. Or spending real-world months exploring the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way in Elite: Dangerous. I guess our imagination always outstripped our ability, but to be honest I don't mind so much nowadays. Mostly because I'm partially disabled and would never get on any kind of space or Mars missions to start with.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  Bumbling around out in the fringes is one of the best things about ED I find. No man's sky is worth a look if you like the explorer aspect as well. Universe is vast and varied and it's come a long way since the disaster that was it it's launch.
api 8y ago
VTVL (vertical takeoff, vertical landing) rockets have been talked about since sci-fi in the 30s and seriously since the 50s. We only just started getting real ones (SpaceX, Blue Origin), though in the 90s there was a prototype called the DC-X that proved the concept at a smaller scale. You can find DC-X videos on YouTube. The fact that something was talked about long ago and we don't have it yet doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with the idea. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to just do the engineering, which with high-capital stuff means it also takes someone being willing to pay for it. Of course the other case is things like net-positive fusion where people have been doing the engineering but it's f'ing hard. Still given the progress that has been made on fusion I get the sense we could do it if we spent more and put more parallel effort into it.

MadTimbo 8y ago

I am the same and can remember getting excited about it back in the day. I find it difficult to regain that excitement. This is especially true given the things that companies like SpaceX have achieved, let alone what they are working on.

bloopernova 8y ago

I was fairly young at the time but still remember _Tomorrow's World_ (A BBC TV show about science and inventions) talking about HOTOL. To ~6 year old me, raised on watching Thunderbirds, Star Trek and NASA launches, it felt great that we'd be getting our very own Shuttle. Much much older me loves messing around with scramjets and air-breathing rockets in Kerbal Space Program. Or spending real-world months exploring the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way in Elite: Dangerous. I guess our imagination always outstripped our ability, but to be honest I don't mind so much nowadays. Mostly because I'm partially disabled and would never get on any kind of space or Mars missions to start with.

noir_lord 8y ago
Bumbling around out in the fringes is one of the best things about ED I find. No man's sky is worth a look if you like the explorer aspect as well. Universe is vast and varied and it's come a long way since the disaster that was it it's launch.

api 8y ago

VTVL (vertical takeoff, vertical landing) rockets have been talked about since sci-fi in the 30s and seriously since the 50s. We only just started getting real ones (SpaceX, Blue Origin), though in the 90s there was a prototype called the DC-X that proved the concept at a smaller scale. You can find DC-X videos on YouTube. The fact that something was talked about long ago and we don't have it yet doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with the idea. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to just do the engineering, which with high-capital stuff means it also takes someone being willing to pay for it. Of course the other case is things like net-positive fusion where people have been doing the engineering but it's f'ing hard. Still given the progress that has been made on fusion I get the sense we could do it if we spent more and put more parallel effort into it.