[Kosh]

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

After 30 years of development, the UK and European space agencies have given a go for the Skylon Spaceplane.

The Skylon, which is being developed at the Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines in the UK, is an unpiloted and reusable spacecraft that can launch into Low Earth Orbit after taking off from a conventional runway.

Looking like something out of Star Wars, Skylon is a self contained, single stage, all in one reusable space vehicle. There are no expensive booster rockets, external fuel tanks or huge launch facilities needed.

The vehicle’s hybrid SABRE engines use liquid hydrogen combined with oxygen from the atmosphere at altitudes up to 26km and speeds of up to Mach 5, before switching over to on-board fuel for the final rocket powered stage of ascent into low Earth orbit.

Congradulations to the UK Space Agency and the ESA for showing us the way to the future.

[General Battuta]

Cool.

[IronBeer]

Excellent. And just in time as the Shuttle bows out.

[Nuke]

good to see this design move forward. looks badass on paper.

[PsychoLandlord]

I'm just glad to see some space programs still up and running.

[BlueFlames]

I'm glad to see that somebody decided to make a more advanced reusable launch vehicle, instead of defaulting to, "Well, the shuttle's gone, so I guess it's single-use rockets forever, now!"  Now, fingers crossed that its maiden flight works out better than Top Gear's attempt to reach the stars.

[SirCumference]

Why doesn't NASA get something like this instead of stupid single use rockets?

[newman]

Why doesn't NASA get something like this instead of stupid single use rockets?

Because single use rockets are here right now and developing cutting edge tech is kinda difficult when the suits keep cutting your budget.

[Nuke]

seems to me nasa is a very conservative organization. they seem to side with proven technology over anything new and unusual. the most exotic design (relatively speaking of course) would probably have been the shuttle itself. not to say we havent had any exotic designs on the board, its just that we have never followed through and turned them into a viable platform (with the exception of the shuttle). the two shuttle disasters are what is responsible with the whole "lets go back to apollo" mentality that theyve had recently. so if it means flying a dinosaur, then thats what they do. so if the brits manage to take it upon themselves to come up with a state of the art launch platform, im not gonna complain.

[karajorma]

Thank **** for that. I've been *****ing about this project being stalled for nearly 25 years!

EDIT : Corrected Kosh's Thunderbirds quote. It just irks me otherwise.

[Kosh]

seems to me nasa is a very conservative organization. they seem to side with proven technology over anything new and unusual. the most exotic design (relatively speaking of course) would probably have been the shuttle itself. not to say we havent had any exotic designs on the board, its just that we have never followed through and turned them into a viable platform (with the exception of the shuttle). the two shuttle disasters are what is responsible with the whole "lets go back to apollo" mentality that theyve had recently. so if it means flying a dinosaur, then thats what they do. so if the brits manage to take it upon themselves to come up with a state of the art launch platform, im not gonna complain.

They looked at the shuttle program as a failure (which it was for a variety of reasons), but they wrongly attributed it to the orbiter being reusable. The Skylon is a much better design, and I'm interested in seeing how far it will push spaceplanes in general. 

[Nuke]

i love this things engines. its like every revolutionary engine design all rolled into one. problem with things like scram and aerospike engines is they often require multiple racks of different types of engines for different flight regimes. all these extra engines, most of which are powered off for parts of the launch sequence and thus are dead weight. some times you also need srbs on top of it which by all means are the most archaic thing in use in modern spaceflight.  while this one is both jet and rocket, and nothing is wasted. this thing uses up waste heat to power parts of the engine. excess liquid hydrogen from the precooler powers rings of ramjets for added atmospheric mode thrust. and most importantly you can launch with less liquid o2, the heavier part of the fuel.

seems to me nasa is a very conservative organization. they seem to side with proven technology over anything new and unusual. the most exotic design (relatively speaking of course) would probably have been the shuttle itself. not to say we havent had any exotic designs on the board, its just that we have never followed through and turned them into a viable platform (with the exception of the shuttle). the two shuttle disasters are what is responsible with the whole "lets go back to apollo" mentality that theyve had recently. so if it means flying a dinosaur, then thats what they do. so if the brits manage to take it upon themselves to come up with a state of the art launch platform, im not gonna complain.

They looked at the shuttle program as a failure (which it was for a variety of reasons), but they wrongly attributed it to the orbiter being reusable. The Skylon is a much better design, and I'm interested in seeing how far it will push spaceplanes in general. 

considering financial issues and the less than perfect safety record, i would agree that yes the shuttle was less than successful, but i wouldn't exactly call it a failure. if only on the grounds of the shear number of launches and missions in general that the system has accomplished successfully. it was not cheap and it cost us a couple crews, but it worked well when it didnt blow up. that said weve been long overdue for a new system for over a decade now.

[watsisname]

That is such a crazy design, I mean DAMN those wings look small!  But I digress -- huzzah for spaceplanes!  I can't wait to see this thing finally unveiled.

In paper studies, the costs per kilogram of payload are hoped to be lowered from the current £15,000/kg to £650/kg (US$1000/kg) as of 2011, including the costs of research and development, with costs expected to fall much more over time after the initial expenditures have amortised.

If that's accurate... Jesus!

[Nuke]

big wings on a hypersonic vehicle is probably not a good design feature. also the engine allows higher than typical takeoff speeds, and probably would want a longer than usual runway for this kind of application. should lift off much like a blackbird and land much like a brick with stub wings, but im sure its flight computer will handle that just fine.

as for the price per unit weight, awesome, but it would probably still cost a half a million to put my fat ass into space.

[Kosh]

should lift off much like a blackbird and land much like a brick with stub wings, but im sure its flight computer will handle that just fine.

I would hope so since it's designed to work without a pilot.

That is such a crazy design, I mean DAMN those wings look small!  But I digress -- huzzah for spaceplanes!  I can't wait to see this thing finally unveiled.

The wings need to be small partly to keep its front profile as low as possible. The reason the shuttle had to use those obnoxiously delicate tiles was its large frontal profile created more ram pressure, which made re-entry much hotter. The Skylon doesn't make as much heat so it can use (what we are hoping will turn out to be) a much more durable heat shielding system.

considering financial issues and the less than perfect safety record, i would agree that yes the shuttle was less than successful, but i wouldn't exactly call it a failure. if only on the grounds of the shear number of launches and missions in general that the system has accomplished successfully. it was not cheap and it cost us a couple crews, but it worked well when it didnt blow up. that said weve been long overdue for a new system for over a decade now

True it was an improvement over what we had before, but it wasn't what it could have been and should have been phased out in the early 90's.

[Kszyhu]

It's almost too good to be true. I'm glad that Skylon will have a chance to fly, but I'm not sure if the design will meet the expectations. There's always a possibility that it will turn out to be a big letdown (or a catastrophe).

[newman]

There's always a possibility that it will turn out to be a big letdown (or a catastrophe).

There is that possibility with every single prototype of everything. I'm going to assume that the aerospace engineers who are working on it and are infinitely more qualified to assess the potential risk/viability of this platform are going to do their jobs, however. Hell even if the worst comes to pass and it fails the lessons learned from that could be invaluable in itself. In any case this project's progress is good news and a step in the right direction.

[Turambar]

we need to get up there, start capturing asteroids, and start building space colonies

[SirCumference]

Why doesn't NASA get something like this instead of stupid single use rockets?

Because single use rockets are here right now and developing cutting edge tech is kinda difficult when the suits keep cutting your budget.

Yeah, I know that the government has been cutting NASA's funding, I just think it's stupid that, rather than developing something new and better, the US is going to throw away the leadership it has had in space exploration for the past 40+ years and go back to some archaic rockets that aren't nearly as versatile as the shuttle is. The only good thing I can see coming out of this is that it might encourage private groups to develop space vehicles. I think that would be good all around

[newman]

I just think it's stupid that, rather than developing something new and better, the US is going to throw away the leadership it has had in space exploration for the past 40+ years and go back to some archaic rockets that aren't nearly as versatile as the shuttle is.

I'm sure I'm going to get burned for this but before the shuttle lovers start flaming me let me just say first that I personally loved the shuttle. Having said that, and after putting the emotional component aside, the shuttle wasn't really all that reusable while being practical about it. First of all the "archaic" rockets were still needed to get it into orbit. Secondly after a mission you had to replace half the ship if you ever wanted it used again. In the end it's actually more cost effective to put a soyuz capsule on top of a rocket than strapping a shuttle to two boosters and then have it be a money sink so you can showcase your "reusable" space plane around. It's a matter of practicality - the shuttle still had to burn a bunch of chemical propellant to reach orbit just like any old rocket does. It still cost insane amounts of money to get any usable amount of payload into orbit and the fact you needed to put a lot of money to reuse the shuttle again didn't help.
Don't get me wrong I was sad when they announced it's retirement and I personally thought it performed admirably despite all I just said. Yes, it had two fatal accidents but it also had 30 years of service behind it.