Scramjets !!!! It works

Scram jets on their own are a complete non-starter. They need to be
accelerated to supersonics speeds before they can even be started, so
any launcher based on the scram-jet idea would need to be boosted to
high speed by a rocket, which would probably mean a complex muti-
stage vehicle which kind of defeats the object of a cheap launcher.

A British company called Reaction Engines limited have been working
on a better solution for around 10 years already, called Skylon.
Unfortunately Britain being Britain, they have received no government
support whatsoever and so funding for research has been very limited.

Before you say - "Oh nice slick website with nice graphics but I
can't see that working", bear in mind that the Designer of the Sabre
Engine for Skylon is Alan Bond, once the head of engine design at
Rolls Royce, a brilliant and innovative Engineer. Alan had already
designed and produced a prototype air breathing rocket (LACE) engine
for a previous rocket plane idea called HOTOL.

If only Alan had American government backing, a cheap launcher would
already be available to NASA and their current exploration plans
would appear far more realistic.

Take a look at the Reaction Engines website:-

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/

Mark

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Goddard"
wrote:
> ANTIcarrot wrote:
>
> >There are reasons rockets go up and then sideways, and not the
other
> way
> round as the spaceplane concept requires.
>
> With respect, that's a deeply biased argument. Rockets go up for two
> reasons:
>
> 1/ to get out of the bulk of the atmosphere as efficiently as
possible
> since it's nothing but drag for them.
>
> 2/ to reduce gravity costs on a non-lifting body.
>
> Scramjets will fundamentally take a different approach ("flying into
> space") since:
>
> 1/ flying your scramjet up and through Mach10 to Mach20ish requires
an
> atmosphere. ...Preferably a very thin high altitude one. ;-)
>
> 2/ the airframe will provide lift to offset gravity.
>
> Thinking further on that thin atmosphere issue (and how the recent
test
> was /hot/ on the vehicle)...Drag is proportional to the density
times
> velocity-squared. So it must be possible to develop a scramjet
airframe
> for which the drag (and hence the heating) is comparable to modern
jet
> aircraft, by simply flying it high enough.
>
> Here's an example: the SR-71 flew at (a sustained) Mach-3 over forty
> years ago, at an altitude of 85000' (~22mb) and it reached skin
> temperatures of 430C. If I want to fly my scramjet to Mach-20 before
> lighting the rockets for orbit, I'd want to do it where the
pressure's
> about 1mb for a similar level of skin heating. Say at 48km or so.
> (There's a handy pressure/altitude calculator here:
> http://www.digitaldutch.com/atmoscalc/). Hmmm...Are there any online
> studies of scramjet launch profiles I could be pointed to that have
> previously looked into this? Or does the additional need for a TPS
on