Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Skylon Orbital Spaceplane

The Rumor Mill News Reading Room 

One Giant Leap for Civilian Space Travel: The Skylon Orbital Spaceplane (Article & Video)
Posted By: TheInternaut [Send E-Mail]
Date: Tuesday, 1-May-2012 17:45:42


One giant leap for civilian space travel: Scientists successfully test engine for Skylon craft that can fly anywhere on earth in just four hours
By Suzannah Hills
Tests have begun on a new engine that could launch a plane into space and revolutionise the way we travel - making it possible to reach anywhere on Earth in just four hours.
The 270ft Skylon spaceplane would take off and land from a conventional runway but fly 18 miles above the ground and out of the Earth's atmosphere at five times the speed of sound.
Critical tests are now being carried out to make sure the Sabre engine - a hybrid that can operate like a normal jet engine but then switch to rocket mode - is faultless before its developers Reaction Engines Limited (REL) based in Culham, Oxfordshire, can unveil it at the Farnborough International Air Show.
Reaction Engines Limited, which designed and built the innovative engine, is hoping for a perfect performance so they can then approach investors to raise the £250m needed to take the project into the final design phase.
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Skylon Orbital Spaceplane Mission Animation



Link to the video on YouTube 

2 comments:

Sonny said...

this is old technology, major events in the very near future will overtake this and other similar plans and they will be given a big changeover, made better or supplanted by whole lotta better technologies.....

Anonymous said...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2136611/Civilian-space-travel-just-got-step-closer-scientists-test-engine-spaceplane-fly-earth-just-hours.html***
SKYLON Spaceplane: Mission Animation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3bkjiGGy0gc
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=238535