Posted on 11/29/2012 9:54:12 AM PST by the scotsman
'A UK company which hopes to build a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology.
Reaction Engines believes its novel Sabre engine, which would operate like a jet engine in the atmosphere and a rocket in space, could displace rockets for space access and transform air travel by bringing any destination on earth to no more than four hours away.
That ambition was given a boost this week by ESA, which has acted as an independent auditor on the Sabre test programme.
"ESA are satisfied that the tests demonstrate the technology required for the Sabre engine development," the agency's head of propulsion engineering Mark Ford told a news conference.
"One of the major obstacles to a re-usable vehicle has been removed," he said.
"The gateway is now open to move beyond the jet age."'
(Excerpt) Read more at eandt.theiet.org ...
Think of it as a Bomber rather than Air liner. It skips into space and can’t be shot down, then comes in to drop weapons. Yes, as a weapon of war it will be built.
yes, it is a very easy concept. in chemistry you learn
PV = nRT
where p is pressure, v is volume, and t is temp
you can rearrange to T = PV / nR
so when the pressure goes up temperature goes up. at scramjet speeds the incoming pressure is waaaaaay up.
they even make small portable piston based fire starters based on this principle.
The cost of spaceflight is not the fuel or vehicles, it is the overhead.
Here is how to lower the cost of spaceflight:
1: Fire all the lawyers and bureaucrats.
2: Separate flights for cargo and humans.
3: Taxes in space, stay in space.
“What in the world could cool air that fast? “
Shock waves can cool just as well as they heat.
The materials I have studied said the hydrogen-fuel jet project was first. When it was abandoned, The SR-71 took shape, with Ben Rich’s major contribution being the Turbo/ramjet that was finally used.
No, the SCRAMJET must be brought up to operating speed with jet engines or rockets. This one is supposed to be able to take off from the ground, although I believe it would be more efficient for it to be dropped from a cargo jet.
A few basic unanswered questions....
1: How much coolant was used to achieve this temperature conversion rate per mass of airflow?
2: From this, how much coolant would be required for a 4 hour flight (for the engines and airframe cooling)?
3: How much weight/volume/precautions will this add to the aircraft?
4: Where is face palm guy?
I should add that the SCRAMJET only operates in the atmosphere while this engine can operate both in the atmosphere and in space.
Why?
Thanks skinkinthegrass!
There was an article about this in PopSci a few, hmm, maybe five years back. It’s an interesting idea — supercooling the oxygen is a necessity in order to get any thrust out of it. Ordinarily, superheated oxygen merely oxidizes the fuel, bring the thrust down to near-zero like right about now, boom. So various bright people thought, wait, what if we cool it?
The savings of not hauling oxygen — and cryo oxygen is very compact in comparison with the hydrogen this craft would also be hauling — add a little to the mass budget. I should point out that single stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicles are and have been feasible, technically, for some time now. But they are rather like that joke about isometric exercise — isometrics are great for people who want to do more isometrics.
The point of the SSTO is said to be one thing, but basically it would result in a very small payload into orbit. SSTOs are a beguiling problem, but they are an end unto themselves, rather than a solution to other problems. Perhaps the only eventual use for any SSTO is to deliver unmanned smallish payloads to orbit, perhaps somewhat cheaper (though probably not), and tumble back through the atmosphere for recovery and recycling for another flight, not unlike the SRBs from the Space Shuttle.
The streaming vids of those separating and tumbling back to Earth are awesome, btw.
/bingo
The more recyclable the craft, the smaller the eventual payload, and it’s not difficult to see how.
At least one earlier SSTO concept (from the US) called for a craft that would take off like a plane, carrying fuel, but breathing atmospheric oxygen; as it gained sufficient velocity, it would use its variable geometry inlet to turn its engine into a ramjet; as velocity continue to rise, the engine would become a scramjet; eventually this would result in an altitude beyond which insufficient oxygen is available, even at the high velocity, and cryo oxygen carried aboard the craft would first supplement, then replace the outside oxygen, making it a straight-up rocket engine.
The problem with the concept was and is, weight savings from not carrying oxygen would be at least partly offset by the added weight of the shifty engines. And again, the vehicle would have a small payload.
Here’s a fun idea from NASA — a sort of iterative concept growing out of Gerald Bull’s early 1960s experiments of firing “Martlets” out of extended gun barrels into suborbital trajectories at least 70 miles high. Too bad he tried to build his Supergun for Saddam, didn’t quite live through that one.
From reading about this in PopSci, I remember being struck by the method they used for the variable geometry inlet — it was invented by the Skunk Works, and used in the SR-71, the only aircraft publicly known that was capable of sustained flight above Mach 3.
There is an SR71 about three miles from here at the AF Armament Museum. I’ll havta check it out.......
Folks in L.A. can always take a pleasant day trip into the High Desert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGP70S3ZBpQ
Where does the air come from if outer space is a vacuum with no air?
Now *that’s* what I’m talkin’ about...
;’)
Thanks Red Badger.
That is a B-52 behind it.......
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