Kryten

Jettison is by different motor.

All upper stages have independent avionics, since most spacecraft aren't build to handle this kind of navigation. Only recent exception is the MDU stage used on Phobos-Grunt, with predictable results when the P-G flight computer failed.

I take it you've not tried the current generation of consoles?

It's from the nozzle; it's lined with carbon-containing ablative material.

Watch some launch videos-there's always a fireball at launch. Delta IV-M has it too, but it's less obvious. There's some hydrogen leakage before launch, and during startup the hydrogen valve opens two seconds before the oxygen to ensure there's enough in the system for cooling.

There aren't that many satellites, that's what we've been trying to tell you; the figures they've given can't be hit even if Skylon gets 100% market share. EDIT: Let's get some numbers here. You say 37.5 Skylons are needed to make up the research costs; at 200 flights each, that's 7,500 flights. In the last few years, the flight rate has been about 60-80 per year; if we're generous and assume it's 80, then that many Skylons are enough to fulfill market demand for 94 years.

Highest you'll get guaranteed is 30 years, and that's for modern specialist archival tape. Anything more is a gamble.

Gains points for reaching testing despite the concept being completely insane. Also undertook the first crewed flight to break the sound barrier! shortly before hitting the ground.

If the LES goes off spuriously, the mission is a failure. If the LES has a good reason to go off, the mission is a failure.

What's the actual time for the launch?

That's not what a volt is.

Incidentally 'Diabolus' would be an invalid name-it's already in use by an ant, of all things.

This thing is supposed to be a commercial product, it needs 'reasons' or it will fail. The problems mostly aren't technological, they're with the business case.

Oh, and the return capsule; so seven (or eight).

There's also a tiny camera drone to watch the impact while the main spacecraft is safely at the other side; so a total of six spacecraft (seven if you count the impactor) to one asteroid.

Ariane is a european rocket launched solely from Kourou in french guiana, the explosion in Wallops was of an american Antares rocket.

Oh, please; let's put this in perspective, it's an uncrewed launch of some test hardware. How many documentaries have you seen about AS-201?

Even if they aren't, the xenon isotopes involved aren't long-lived enough to be a threat at any great distance from a test site. Xe-135, by far the most common, has a half-life of only 9 hours.

Again with this stuff! Deuterium isn't radioactive and is only dangerous in quantities of litres/day, this is very basic. As is how to use hyphens.

If they really are assuming structure and avionics only=near nil dev. cost, then no, that's not going to be competitive with anybody.

It's awful.

Falcon 9 can put reasonably sized payloads to GTO, Skylon cannot; it wouldn't be competitive if it could go up for free. A study that ignores that payloads are real objects with minimum sizes made for specific purposes is worthless, and that's the state of a lot of the studies in the sector.

I'm sorry, I stopped reading the post when you implied that deuterium is dangerous. Come back when you've got some actual knowledge of what you're talking about, rather than just repeating buzzwords.

And then you can pay at least twice as much for games. It's false economy.

Protium has a very low neutron cross-section, production of significant amounts of tritium during as brief an exposure as a NERVA test would involve would be highly unlikely.