The UK’s “New Space” company Reaction Engines has posted a new news item on its website for January with a picture of the company’s founder Alan Bond and employees at a NASA facility. The company reports that
There was considerable interest in SKYLON and many areas of possible cooperation are being explored further as a result.
The news item also reports that the UK company’s heat transfer technology trials begin next month and that work is well underway on the D1 configuration for the single stage to orbit spaceplane Skylon
Thank you, Robbie.
I saw the video. Richard Varville puts a brave face on the challenges and I wish him/them luck.
It would be preferable, in my opinion, to tout this as a pure technology development exercise leading perhaps to a subscale flying demonstrator one day, rather than Skylon, which is far too premature.
Also I recommend replacing the twin rocket engines on Sabre (for risk reduction) with a single motor, perhaps with an extensible skirt. Rocket science has progressed quite far enough these days.
If this is true then it gives me hope that NASA may be finally heading in the right direction at last. Unless of course it was like with the Russians; when, once it was discovered the Americans couldn’t reproduce the Russian technology AND make a huge profit, it was discarded. On the other hand, there’s VASIMIR…here’s hoping..