A very promising new engine design could allow for travel into low earth orbit and make it possible to travel from New York To Japan In 4 hours. Yep it may be possible to make it for a meeting in New York and be home in Japan on the same day. This design allows for the engine to be cooled from 1,000⁰C to minus 150⁰C in less than 1/100th of a second without the engine frosting up in space. Its a first of a kind design that Reaction Engines Limited called revolutionary. The plane that Reaction designed called SABRE could takeoff from almost any runway take a satellite into space with a 90 percent cost deduction. Alan Bond founder of Reaction spent 30 years developing the design and this is one of the major breakthroughs in engine design. http://www.sen.com/news/skylon-s-revolutionary-engine-passes-key-tests.html
I'd also like to join the 62 mile club with a space stewardess. I'll cover the Replacements song so it's "Waitress in Space" and not sky to get her out them space jammies.
This is something I've always dreamed of since I was a kid. I hope it happens before I die. There's nothing more beautiful than space.
I watched a BBC documentary about the guy behind this engine a few months ago. Had to fight in the courts to be allowed to use certain technologies he came up with while working for the UK government (it fell under the official secrets act IIRC). EDIT: Here it is.
Been following this for some time and it's absolutely fascinating. Without meaning to sounds nationalistic, I hope if this technology becomes commercially viable that it stays in the UK! Could be a massive new industry.
Funny Forbes writers must read Sherdog LOL? I posted this story early in the morning and now there is a story about it on Forbes but talks about plane design issues. In the video they talked about the SR-71 and a friend of mine used to work on them in the air force. He said that there is no way they could make that plane commercial. He said that the planes skin would stretch like nearly a foot in flight. He said it would leak fuel on the runway because of all the stretching. He also talked about the costs of maintaining it was insanely expensive far more then any other plane including the bombers. The design of their plane is nice but titanium does not hold up very well at temperatures above 3,000 degrees. They need to go to ceramic or some kind of mix of ceramic and silicon composite. Going with some form of SR-71 type design will not be very usable in reentry do to the extreme heat of nearly 3,000 degrees or above. http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedo...ll-decades-away-says-nasa-aerospace-engineer/
Any word on how close they are to getting funded to build a working version? I know to this point they have only built proof of concept versions to prove they have solved the heat exchanger issue. I want to send the investmet money to get my name on a waiting list.
