Skylon gets a bit closer!
Discussion
ESA's technical experts.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news for this booty/money call PR exercise from REL, but ESA doesnt have any technical experts. The companies have technical experts, ESA has people who want to think they are and know they are funded without any commercial constraints or expectations on them.
In fact, just dont start me.
- Giggle*
I hate to be the bearer of bad news for this booty/money call PR exercise from REL, but ESA doesnt have any technical experts. The companies have technical experts, ESA has people who want to think they are and know they are funded without any commercial constraints or expectations on them.
In fact, just dont start me.
Sorry Eric. I went to a RAeS talk given by Alan Bond. This isn't HOTOL, it could be the 3rd cousin, twice removed of HOTOL. HOTOL, as said by the man himself, was pretty laughable when you got into the technical details, and what it would be able to do, on looking back.
I like HOTOL, I like the design, and there's someone with a desktop model of it in the next office to me at work, I enjoy looking at it, and wondering what could have been, but having seen what it could have achieved I can see why it was abandoned. The Skylon won't make flight ( I think I remember a figure for runway length of about 3 miles for instance), but a fresh design using the engines (which are the key-enablers and technology stumbling block at present) can't be far away - as alluded to in the article. I hope I get to go on the british Orion Clipper!
Some spaceplane pron....
Yeah, ok its from 2001 but still.....ultra cool.
And then there's good old Hotol...
They all look better than Skylon - which actually looks pretty good here...
And I would have liked them to make more of MUSTARD, but can't find much in the way of good images on the net.
I like HOTOL, I like the design, and there's someone with a desktop model of it in the next office to me at work, I enjoy looking at it, and wondering what could have been, but having seen what it could have achieved I can see why it was abandoned. The Skylon won't make flight ( I think I remember a figure for runway length of about 3 miles for instance), but a fresh design using the engines (which are the key-enablers and technology stumbling block at present) can't be far away - as alluded to in the article. I hope I get to go on the british Orion Clipper!
Some spaceplane pron....
Yeah, ok its from 2001 but still.....ultra cool.
And then there's good old Hotol...
They all look better than Skylon - which actually looks pretty good here...
And I would have liked them to make more of MUSTARD, but can't find much in the way of good images on the net.
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