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Old 12th Jan 2014, 19:59
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awblain
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Skylon/Sabre

It's certainly all exciting stuff, especially the SABRE engine; if whatever magic dyson frost trick there is in there is effective.

However, the heat dumping into the hydrogen fuel will be interesting, and the margin for any weight growth in the whole Skylon concept is exceedingly slim. When you have to set aside using methane as a fuel and adopt hydrogen as the only one that will do the job, it's a worry. Its survival after an engine failure or a tangle with a goose or two also looks unlikely.

If SpaceX can recover substantial parts of their rockets, or if Stratolaunch works, then the cost of launching on a rocket drops close to Skylon levels, and the business case for a Skylon-type vehicle gets thin.

Potential military applications of an upper-atmospheric Skylon for something along the lines of "prompt global strike" might make for a more entertaining case, but I don't see well-heeled passengers, or their insurers, being able to afford flights to the antipodes.

And in the context, don't forget that Mr Branson's fairground ride in that video only gains about a tenth of the energy required for orbit. While that seems to be well placed commercially (at least for PR), Virgin Galactic's lack of an escape system may also weigh on the minds of the insurers or the rich and famous.
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