Reaction Engines: “Majority” of Experts at Review Found Skylon to be “Viable Concept”

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Doug Messier
on October 5, 2010, at 12:07 pm
in ESA, Reaction Engines and Skylon
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Comments: 4 responses
4 Comments

REACTION ENGINES NEWS UPDATE

On 20th and 21st September, the UK Space Agency held a System Requirements Review on the commercial and technical capabilities of SKYLON at the International Space Innovation Centre at Harwell, England. Approximately ninety invited experts attended the event venturing from various European and global nations including the USA, Russia, India, Japan and South Korea. In the months leading up to the Review, three engineers from the European Space Agency (ESA) were seconded to REL in order to investigate our technology, methods and analysis. ESA will provide the UK Space Agency with an official report on the Workshop within in the next month.

The preliminary results of the event are indicative that the majority of the attendees consider SKYLON to be a viable concept. Responses to questions on the project provided a clear and honest overview of the programme. Dr Constantinos Stavrinidis, Head of Mechanical Engineering at ESA, gave the closing address and commended the competence of REL and its SKYLON concept.

REL hopes that the feasibility of the SKYLON programme is no longer in doubt and that the commercial and technical aspects of the project are well understood and recognised. Over the coming months, discussions with government, industry and private investment are due to take place and REL looks forward to further progressing SKYLON.

The UK Space Agency’s press release for the event is available at http://www.ukspaceagency.bis.gov.uk/19661.aspx?pf=1

Recently, one of the recurring questions has been the degree of government involvement in the SKYLON development. To date, the public contribution stands at 15% with the remaining 85% provided by private investment. REL intends SKYLON to remain as commercial a programme as possible.

Editor’s Note: It’s interesting that ESA lent Reaction Engines three engineers leading up the the preview. It certainly shows that the space agency is taking the project seriously.

It’s also interesting the way in which this news update is couched. I’m not sure if Reaction Engines is taking a cautious, anti-Branson approach to promoting its technology, or the results of the review were less than they had hoped.

The preliminary results of the event are indicative that the majority of the attendees consider SKYLON to be a viable concept.

That’s a very legalistic sentence. “Preliminary results” being “indicative” of a “majority” who think the “concept” is “viable.” A bit on the vague side.

There are no shortages of viable concepts out there. The questions are usually about how much money and time you need to make them a reality,  how many technological breakthroughs are required, and whether you can afford to operate them after they are built. (Hello? Concorde? Space shuttle? Ares? Hermes?)  There are plenty of other viable concepts that are equally worthy of limited research funding.

REL hopes that the feasibility of the SKYLON programme is no longer in doubt and that the commercial and technical aspects of the project are well understood and recognised.

Well, one would hope so. Except for, perhaps, the minority that was not convinced of the concept’s viability. Not a very strong statement.

Dr Constantinos Stavrinidis, Head of Mechanical Engineering at ESA, gave the closing address and commended the competence of REL and its SKYLON concept.

Competence is good. However, with something like Skylon, you’re going to need brilliance. Ask anyone working on SpaceShipTwo. The people building it, by every account I’ve heard, quite brilliant. Yet, the project is taking much longer — and costing much more — than anyone anticipated.

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  • Jez

    It also sounds like the precise and considered words of an engineer or scientist. It is Reaction Engines’ sober news page, not a marketing release.

    It appears to me that even world class rocket scientists will have their doubts about Skylon until some breakthroughs begin to be demonstrated, such as the heat exchangers.

    I don’t think Reaction Engines ever speak in terms more strongly than this. They do however say that this is far ahead of any other concept that they know about – and as world class experts in the field I am inclined to believe them.

    Yes you can review those words the way you have, but it is my view that that wasn’t the intended meaning.

    Richard Branson is strapping a rocket to a plane to get just beyond the defined boundary of space (110 km – not orbit). I think it is great, especially with the media interest it generates in space, but it doesn’t move us forward. No fancy engines or heat shields required. NASA started throwing things like that up 50 years ago. It is easy to blow the trumpet when you aren’t doing anything new. SpaceShipTwo is fun, but not new.

    Skylon, on the other hand, is unproven, revolutionary, cutting edge and planning to get up to 15 tonnes into low-earth orbit (e.g. the ISS at 300KM). Being able to easily transport such mass means a transfer vehicle could be launched on Skylon to live in low earth orbit which in turn could transport loads to much higher orbits e.g. lunar transport orbit.

    However good a concept is and however confident Reaction Engines are in it, there are no absolute certainties. As scientists I would expect them to reflect that in the language of scientific caution.

  • Nickolai_the_Russian_Guy

    That’s a healthy amount of skepticism Doug and Jez. I think they’re avoiding the optimistic route because this is one of those ideal concepts that everyone dreams about but is REALLY hard to actually go through with. If they seem overly optimistic about their design, I think it’s more likely they will be readily dismissed by experts who may have once fantasized themselves about a single stage to orbit design that ultimately turned out to be a pipe dream for a whole mess of reasons.

    There’s a lot they need to get right here and it won’t be easy. Their schedule is ridiculous as well – they don’t expect to have any sort of real results until 2020 (and I can’t even recall what they plan to have by then, but I’m almost positive it’s not a test flight). In my limited knowledge of space programmes, I’ve never even seen governments estimate first test flights beyond 10 years out. So they’re being really cautious and I think that’s good because it makes people take them more seriously.

  • Greg Holden

    HI Doug; this update just in from the UK’s BBC website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17864782

  • Michael Turner

    With the four-hours-to-anywhere talk, it sounds like they anticipate some practical aviation application for this, even if the space launch goal doesn’t pan out.

    Liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, liquid helium, liquid nitrogen …. this is a total cryocraft concept if there ever was one.