Do you think Skylon will be our first completed SSTO?

[Kryten]

It could fail spectacularly. But when they have done what they have done with the engine engineering wise, what really is the likelyhood that they screw that part up?

Pretty high. X-33 failed on the fuel tankage, for example.

[angusmcbeth]

I would have thought that the next logical step would be the development of LAPCAT, which would be much cheaper? (I think?) I would love to see LAPCAT in our skies...like a new age concorde!!

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/lapcat.html

I'm a big fan of Skylon.

Edited June 6, 2013 by angusmcbeth

[The Jedi Master]

I thought SpaceShipOne was our first ever SSTO...

[Kryten]

SapceShipOne is suborbital, and even then only just.

[Borklund]

Skylon is just a concept; Reaction Engines are only funded to work on the Sabre engine and slowly at that. So no, Skylon is probably not going to be the first SSTO.

[magnemoe]

The Titan II first stage from 50 years ago was capable of SSTO if you cared to launch it with zero payload, which would have been useless. SSTO itself is pointless, but actually easy. It's SSTO with a significant payload that is difficult to achieve, as well as reusability. SSTO for the sake of SSTO doesn't make sense.

SSTO, reusability, and low-cost are 3 different things. Generally, the goal is to reduce the cost to orbit, which is not necessarily related to achieving SSTO or reusability. SSTO and reusability are engineering parameters, but cost is usually a function of the market environment and many complex parameters, of which engineering is only a minor factor.

Correctly, an SSTO who is cheap to operate and can haul an useful payload is hard.

Test in ksp, an mainsail and two orange tanks is an ssto, you can bring up an probe and have fun landing. Increasing the size a bit or using jet engines you can get something who take 3-7 kerbals to LKO and dock, making the thing two stages where both is able to soft land and you increase payload from 6 to around 20 with the same sized rocket.

X-51 has nothing to do with SSTO or spaceplanes.

Yes but an well working scramjet would be useful for it.

[NovaSilisko]

I think HAAS 2C will be the first SSTO... not reusable, but still SSTO http://www.arcaspace.com/en/haas2c.htm

[Nuke]

the reason american aerospace projects cost so damn much is the stupid huge amounts of bureaucracy that surrounds agencies like nasa and darpa. i wouldnt be surprised if the brits could pull off something better with half the cash.

[White Rider]

the reason american aerospace projects cost so damn much is the stupid huge amounts of bureaucracy that surrounds agencies like nasa and darpa. i wouldnt be surprised if the brits could pull off something better with half the cash.

I'm quite sure we'd still be happy to receive that kind of funding though.

[Drunkrobot]

When looked at from a technical point of view, it can defiantly fly, with 12 (possibly 15) tonnes of payload, go into space in a single stage, release that payload, glide back down to earth, and be ready to do it all over again in two days. Can the same be said of any other design, with component tests to back it up? No. They will need money to build their bird, though. But when (or if) they have the engine built and tested, then every aerospace company and government space program on earth will either sit up and pay up for the new technology, or will become obsolete.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Drunkrobot

[Rune]

Apologies Rune, the £380m figure was from a few months back. I misread.. that was the number they (at the time) needed to really "get the project off the ground." Whatever that meant. The source was BBC.

In 2010 the full project number was apparently somewhere in the region of £12billion so your figure of 19 seems reasonable enough to assume its correct as far as we are likely to be aware.

No need to apologize, we all get a reference wrong at some point. I was actually hoping you would point me to a better source... but the important thing is to learn stuff. I was just hoping I was the one doing the learning!

Pretty high. X-33 failed on the fuel tankage, for example.

That's kind of a myth. X-33 failed on, mostly, political grounds. "Not invented here" and all that stuff. The tankage issue was forced by NASA's rules when they took over the project (from DARPA, the USAF? I can't remember from whom, but NASA didn't start this program, they inherited it, and proceeded to kill it promptly). And it was actually solved in the end, even using the composite tanks NASA insisted on, but by then the funding was long gone.

the reason american aerospace projects cost so damn much is the stupid huge amounts of bureaucracy that surrounds agencies like nasa and darpa. i wouldnt be surprised if the brits could pull off something better with half the cash.

Then how come development programs in Europe take basically the same amount of money? Because last I heard, the A-380 was quite pricey to develop. And if you think there is no red tape in this side of the Atlantic... well, look at ESA. Or we could get into the life and works of the Eurofighter, which is now... what, ten years late to begin service? 15? And you don't even want to begin following that money trail.

Rune. Sometimes I come across as something of a dick. Sorry!

Edited June 6, 2013 by Rune

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Defense procurement is a complete mess the world over, the eurofighter is nothing compared the F-35. A lot of goverment funded projects show the same issues where poorly managed projects consume all the cash avliable and then more, but the millitary is generally worse. Boeing and Airbus (at least their civil divisions) are comparatively efficient.

the A380 cost $15 billion to develop, thats probably the very minimum you could expect to budget for SKYLON.

[White Rider]

I too would have liked it if you were the one "doing the learning" Rune. It would mean we would be much much closer to having this beautiful bird in the air (and out of it ;D).

As it stands, the project obviously still has a long way to go financially and time-wise.

As Drunkrobot pointed out however, once the entire engine has been built and tested fully as a single unit rather than just the precooler being tested (as amazing as it is.) I feel that will be the kick the project needs to develop the frame and indeed the rest of the bird itself.

With such innovative tech I would be surprised if no airlines at all were interested in investment. Even if one were not interested in the orbital capabilities of such a craft, the ability to go pretty much anywhere on earth in less than 4hours commercially simply shouldn't be ignored.

[DerekL1963]

They stated in 2011 that they could have a suborbital test flight by 2016.

They stated in 1995 they could have a test flight by 2001. In 1998 they stated they could have a test flight by 2005...

[Drunkrobot]

I never heard of these claims myself, so I'm assuming they were assuming they were given the funding needed at that time. They could've had the entire skylon project done by now, with a successor in development, if they were given the full funding thirty years ago.

[White Rider]

I never heard of these claims myself, so I'm assuming they were assuming they were given the funding needed at that time. They could've had the entire skylon project done by now, with a successor in development, if they were given the full funding thirty years ago.

Not quite, as the precooler tech was just a pipe dream back then. They have literally only just sorted it out pretty much the tail end of last year.

That's partly why I'm particularly excited by it. With arguably the most difficult part of the project now having working prototypes finally, the project is in one of those tender situations where it could (A) stay in its current state of fairly slow progress and take another thirty years... Or ( some smart CEO will bite, and the project will take off [excuse the pun] exponentially.

[Drunkrobot]

I was assuming that with more money, and greater resources, reaction engines would've solved the problems of the precooler much earlier.

Then again, people with much more money, skilled workers and equipment have tried and failed to produce similar tech.

[Scoundrel]

I don't know if the project would have been flying by now. The documentary on Skylon The Three Rocketeers implies that the HOTOL project had so many drawbacks that only a complete redesign would have allowed them to truly succeed, and only after the technology to model it had matured were they able to take advantage of it and solve the cooling and anti-frost issues. That said, I personally agree with the assessment that Skylon should have been flying by now but for the scientific ignorance of politicians and and their timid constituents.

[tavert]

We all love space here, and we can imagine a million things *we* would do given economical access to space, but it's really difficult to make a business case to make the initial development investment. Look at how few launches ULA does. Reducing launch costs will hopefully increase demand by broadening the possibilities, but to what magnitude? That's a very difficult risk-reward prediction to make. For roughly an order of magnitude higher investment than the total that has gone into SpaceX so far (I'm guessing there, but pretty sure it's closer to 1 billion than to 10), you have a long development process that is still quite risky, for any project this large and with so little direct precedent to compare to. People with billions of dollars to spend care about payback period, return on investment, etc more than much of anything else.

The mention of airlines highlights this point. Name a single large airline that is doing well financially. It's a very low-margin business, the airlines are not the ones paying for R&D. Those costs are borne by the manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus, and if they saw a market opportunity in LAPCAT they would be investing. I think EADS might be to some tiny extent, but don't quote me on that.

Edited June 7, 2013 by tavert

[DerekL1963]

They could've had the entire skylon project done by now, with a successor in development, if they were given the full funding thirty years ago.

Maybe, maybe not - you presume the Skylon engine will work as promised, something that's *very* far from assured. (Let alone doing so on budget and on schedule.) People seem to forget that the engine is just barely this side of being a paper exercise, and that even with full (currently desired) budgets, there's a whole heap on known unknowns (read: things that may cost a lot more than budgeted and/or may perform [well] below targets)... and that's presuming that no showstoppers show up uninvited to the party.

People dreaming pipe dreams of space travel based on paper technology would do well to print out Rickover's comments on the differences between paper reactors and real reactors, post it beside their monitor, and recite it to themselves twice daily.

[jwenting]

Even NASA failed with similar projects, and ended up handing them over to DARPA. Europe doesn't have a DARPA. By the time Skylon is finished, it will be a distant 2nd to the American effort (X-51). But, thats not to say Europe shouldn't at least try.

playing devil's advocate (and I don't disagree with your conclusion that they'll never do it most likely), but DARPA and NASA have a history of failure a mile long, failure not for technical reasons but pure bureaucratic red tape sabotage.

Any promising project gets hit with a flood of changing requirements and regulations to ensure its failure by the traditional rocket crowds at Space Command and NASA.

DC-X, Roton, Venturesta, etc. etc. etc. were all killed by it as soon as it became apparent they could actually work.

[White Rider]

That's the worst of it in my mind... Such a great opportunity for the UK to take an authoritative stance on the space market when so far they've done bugger all and it's very likely they won't take it.

The last British astronaut was about 20 years ago, sans this new guy going to the ISS soon and all their launches are done via other countries launch vehicles.

It would be great to see a British firm commercially produce the engines but chances are slim on that.

[jwenting]

We all love space here, and we can imagine a million things *we* would do given economical access to space, but it's really difficult to make a business case to make the initial development investment. Look at how few launches ULA does. Reducing launch costs will hopefully increase demand by broadening the possibilities, but to what magnitude?

The mention of airlines highlights this point. Name a single large airline that is doing well financially. It's a very low-margin business, the airlines are not the ones paying for R&D. Those costs are borne by the manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus, and if they saw a market opportunity in LAPCAT they would be investing. I think EADS might be to some tiny extent, but don't quote me on that.

1) very true. The massive initial investment and the risk of failure deter many an investor. The massive government red tape, constantly changing requirements, laws and regulations, and uncertainty about whether it won't simply be banned from flying by a government that's scared of losing its monopoly access to space (remember Arianespace is a government owned company, even if in theory private, and NASA has a big say in who gets launch licenses in the US, never mind the Chinese, Indians, or Russians/Kazakhs) make investment in space access something most people will not even consider.

That's why ESA, NASA and DARPA were set up in the first place, to provide a means for government to part fund such things and gain the technology as a reward for their own use.

2) there are many commercial airlines that do well. KLM is one (the entire reason for their lacking financial numbers is that they're paying through the nose to cover the losses of Air France, who own them). BA, Singapore Airlines, I think Garuda, are strong as well, as are many low cost carriers like Easyjet and Ryanair.

Essentially the biggest rotten apple in the airline industry are the usual suspects, airlines in countries that themselves are in serious financial trouble overall: the USA, Spain, Italy, Greece.

[White Rider]

Oh Christ don't...

You're giving me images of the Lapcat/Skylon with that horrible EasyJet orange.

[Drunkrobot]

I'm not a space technologist or anything (yet), but as it was said earlier, everyone and their mum knows how to build a rocket engine. Most of the components in skylons design have been already. The "oh so exotic" heatshield is loosely based on the SR-71, and already reaction engines have produced examples of the "wonder" material. Pretty much the only thing that has stopped skylon from existing was the precooler, which works, and belongs to RE.