Author Topic: The Reaction Engines Skylon/SABRE Master Thread (6)  (Read 437831 times)

Offline DM27

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #360 on: 11/21/2016 02:28 pm »
I think this is very encouraging for REL:
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/where-winners-can-emerge-and-grow/

Hopefully it/something similar to this initiative can be delivered.

I can see this (if it ever happens) manifesting itself in UK defence projects and I think that would be the best outcome for REL. I noticed a few months ago that the RAF launched a competition for 16-18 year olds to "design" a SABRE engine based long distance transport aircraft. if the UK can fund it's own Small launcher craft through the UKSA (MPs have been determined to create a larger scale national space programme) and an RAF funded large military transport craft in the mould of the 2 platforms on RELs new website, that would be a great strategy. the manufacturer, most likely a BAE (and possibly an additional partner) could simply commercialise the platforms for a fraction of the cost that developing the commercial platforms from scratch would cost.

Also, point 5 in the extremely well written article below would seem to suggest that May is thinking along these lines too:

http://www.politico.eu/article/5-takeaways-from-theresa-mays-speech-to-business-leaders/

As a Brit very excited about RELs tech, I really hope that is how it pans out.
« Last Edit: 11/21/2016 03:00 pm by DM27 »

Offline CameronD

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #361 on: 11/21/2016 08:29 pm »

They won competitively bid contracts for services.  That would not, in any definition, be "state supported".  Let's not make up definitions when real ones exist.

Just to nibble at that, was the contract open to non-US companies?

No.. but then there was no requirement for it to be either.  In any open market anywhere on the planet, a buyer, State or Private, is free to set whatever restrictions they feel are important to them.  After all, it's their money.

That's a red herring. It doesn't matter what the requirements are or are not or whose money it is.  It's a way for the state to support one of it's own industries.
..should they choose to do so. 

Again, since the decision-makers in question have been empowered by the people of that state to make decisions in the best interests of that state then they're free to set whatever restrictions they feel are important to them.

In some cases that might be to invite tenders from outside the state... in other cases, maybe not. :)

« Last Edit: 11/21/2016 08:32 pm by CameronD »
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine - however, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are
going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.

Offline RanulfC

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #362 on: 11/21/2016 08:30 pm »
Some general comments and replies:
Oddball wrote:
Quote
I understand what you're saying, and agree with much. What I'm trying to say (in a cack-handed way) is that the current methods are too slow, inflexible and prone to exploding to ever end up with a significant human space presence. Even Space X with a partially reusable rocket will take weeks (if not months) to reintegrate for a second launch.

Actually you DON'T understand what I'm getting at and for the most part neither do most people on here but really that's ok :)

Our "current methods" are in fact easily and fully capable of handling a much higher rate of traffic and payload-to-orbit than we currently have. Inflexible? Far from it actually as we've moved to a very flexible and rather 'containerized' mode of operations and did so in space launch LONG before most terrestrial transportation did so despite the rather obvious operational and economic incentives to do so. "Prone to exploding"? More to the point they are in fact no more 'prone' to not delivering cargo to the destination as most other transport systems historically. We don't generally put life jackets or parachutes on cargo containers "just in case" the ship goes down of the airplane crashes either.

Turn around time? You suggest some where around "sub-week" as a time frame, well rest assured that it could be done if there was enough traffic. I don't expect Elon to get his 'hours' turn around time it's just not a realistic goal for a TSTO that started life as an ELV. Maybe once he gets a more integrated design with both stages being fully reusable he'll get down to a day or two but I suspect it would take a much more 'from-the-ground-up' design to reach that on an operational basis. Of course that's "per-vehicle" which really doesn't matter as much as you might think.

See you normally don't need more than 8-12 hours tops to 'refurbish' a pad to the point where you can begin stacking another LV on it and that is actually far higher a pace than any current 'requirement' can drive. Aircraft at a busy airport take off in less than 5 minute intervals, ships leave port dozens at a time, yadda, yadda, and it is simply NOT a factor when it comes to space launch. Those systems have had hundreds to thousands of years to reach that point AND they have always had an extensive PRE-EXISTING system of destinations and cargos in which to tap to provide the incentive to reach those levels.

Space does NOT have that. At. All.
I've heard this before:
Quote
It's a vicious circle: no destinations, no market; no market, no demand; no demand, no destinations. Until someone/something comes along to break that, it feels like we will be forever stuck in LEO for manned missions, GEO for communications, and the occasional splurge for scientific robotic observation BEO. So those of us dreaming of Moon/Mars colonies, orbital space stations, or research bases on Europa, will just keep on dreaming.

No one can 'break' a circle that in fact does NOT exist. Note that there IS a "demand" and a "market" in existence, the fact that it is not as large or extensive as some would like and that it does not in fact 'service' a market that does not exist but which some want to exist is totally beside the point.

The fallacy here is "we" need to "make" destinations and markets for reusable SSTO, (and yes that's the main argument FOR SSTO by the way) by building an extensive LEO orbital infrastructure for them to service.

It's a fallacy because that's not how transportation systems work either economically or in reality. Transportation gets cheaper servicing a market not by creating it which is what most people get wrong. Airplanes didn't 'create' any market but became economical in servicing existing markets in less time than other forms of transportation. (Time is money after all :) ) There is an existing 'market' and economy that expendable launch vehicles in fact DO service at this moment and do so economically and fairly regularly. Rather obviously a reusable launch vehicle that can service that same market should be able to do so more economically. Not so obviously does this apply to SSTO vehicles mostly for the fact that MOST SSTO concepts have never managed to reach a comparable operational payload to an ELV or multistage reusable vehicle. Note I wrote "operational payload" rather than just 'payload' because in fact while Skylon is an SSTO it does in fact require a second stage to allow getting the 'payload' to the most in-demand destinations despite that fact. But at least REL was realistic about that and therefore designed the Skylon with more capacity than the average SSTO concept.

Are there any other SSTO concepts out there in development? No, for the most part they have been found to be lacking in both economy and utility as has been pointed out. (Note though; in fact neither Musk or Beezos did much 'due-diligence' work on anything OTHER than the concepts they went forward with. Neither considered for example any type of air-breathing or horizontal take off/landing concepts as they did not consider them 'viable' BEFORE they began design trade studies. They already had made up their minds on what would and would not be included in the 'trades' of the designs) Pure-rocket powered VTOL SSTO's have in fact been suggested and pushed for decades but none have reached even prototype flight status. (No the DC-X was NOT a flight prototype but a very limited VTOL demonstrator) And for good reason as they suffer from a lack of payload in comparison to any multistage design and normally require much more complex and expensive technology to achieve.

To consider our current situation to be 'game over' is unrealistic to me as we do in fact have a number of possible game changers in the pipeline of which one is Skylon. I do not see any 'window of opportunity' which is closing on the Skylon concept as, rather obviously, any successful fully reusable TSTO design technology would only benefit the development of Skylon and any Skylon/SABRE development can't but help towards technology that can be used for multistage designs as well.

And lastly on which is the better 'strategy' of builder/operator or builder to owner/operator for the most part the differing sides seem bound and determined to ignore history and reality to make their point :)
The latter ALWAYS takes over from the former once a certain level of traffic is reached as the builders can no longer afford to do both they inevitably form partnerships/consortiums to "buy" the vehicles and then own and operate them while they then concentrate on design and manufacture of new and improved vehicles. REL is simply assuming that the traffic levels will hit the levels that both SpaceX and BO are PLANNING on reaching and planning accordingly while SpaceX and BO are currently not looking to that point. Yet.

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline RanulfC

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #363 on: 11/21/2016 08:37 pm »
Oh and before I forget, the ISS is really an example of what you WANT yet you argue like it's a 'bad' thing. After all we COULD use a Saturn-V or SLS to put up the whole thing in ONE flight and then send ONE other flight to carry all the supplies it will need for it's life time which gets you TWO (2) flights of a massively expensive system that you won't need/can't afford to do again for the life time of the station. Or you can fly dozens to hundreds of flights over the same lifetime with a more economic system.

In theory you can put up a lot of other payloads that go far beyond LEO with the latter than the former, (note the "s" there) with much greater flexibility and utility. But it greatly depends on what your (or whoever's paying the bills) actual goal is now doesn't it? :)

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline Jim

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #364 on: 11/21/2016 08:56 pm »

But after a 400 flight test programme (which is factored into the budget) they will know very well.

Which could take a decade.

Offline francesco nicoli

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #365 on: 11/21/2016 09:13 pm »

They won competitively bid contracts for services.  That would not, in any definition, be "state supported".  Let's not make up definitions when real ones exist.

Just to nibble at that, was the contract open to non-US companies?

No.. but then there was no requirement for it to be either.  In any open market anywhere on the planet, a buyer, State or Private, is free to set whatever restrictions they feel are important to them.  After all, it's their money.

That's a red herring. It doesn't matter what the requirements are or are not or whose money it is.  It's a way for the state to support one of it's own industries.

legally, it depends. I am not sure about antitrust law in the US. But in Europe, it depends on a case by case decision of the judge.
Generally, you cannot restrict too much to whom the competition is open: anyone from the internal market (EU in EU, US in US) is allowed to participate (or get state aid, in other cases). In other words, the contract competition (or the state aid) should be non discriminating on nationality..

Online oddbodd

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #366 on: 11/21/2016 09:44 pm »
Some general comments and replies:
Oddball wrote:
Quote
I understand what you're saying, and agree with much. What I'm trying to say (in a cack-handed way) is that the current methods are too slow, inflexible and prone to exploding to ever end up with a significant human space presence. Even Space X with a partially reusable rocket will take weeks (if not months) to reintegrate for a second launch.

Our "current methods" are in fact easily and fully capable of handling a much higher rate of traffic and payload-to-orbit than we currently have. Inflexible? Far from it actually as we've moved to a very flexible and rather 'containerized' mode of operations and did so in space launch LONG before most terrestrial transportation did so despite the rather obvious operational and economic incentives to do so. "Prone to exploding"? More to the point they are in fact no more 'prone' to not delivering cargo to the destination as most other transport systems historically. We don't generally put life jackets or parachutes on cargo containers "just in case" the ship goes down of the airplane crashes either.

Just to nit-pick one thing. I did specify that the exploding thing was a hindrance to human presence, not cargo. Annual rocket failures seem to be bumping around in the 5% area, so 1 in 20 flights frequently has a fiery, premature end. Go to Heathrow and tell all those business and tourist travelers that every flight has a 1 in 20 chance of catastrophic failure, killing everyone aboard. Excluding the mentally ill, suicidal and people under extreme duress, I'll take a wild stab in the dark that zero people would choose to fly. Even if they were, there'd be no pilots or cabin staff willing to roll that D20-of-death every time they did their job. Hopefully the abort system in the SpaceX Dragon module will at least mean that it's just very expensive, instead of tragic.

Online oddbodd

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #367 on: 11/21/2016 10:09 pm »
Oh and before I forget, the ISS is really an example of what you WANT yet you argue like it's a 'bad' thing. After all we COULD use a Saturn-V or SLS to put up the whole thing in ONE flight and then send ONE other flight to carry all the supplies it will need for it's life time which gets you TWO (2) flights of a massively expensive system that you won't need/can't afford to do again for the life time of the station. Or you can fly dozens to hundreds of flights over the same lifetime with a more economic system.

In theory you can put up a lot of other payloads that go far beyond LEO with the latter than the former, (note the "s" there) with much greater flexibility and utility. But it greatly depends on what your (or whoever's paying the bills) actual goal is now doesn't it? :)

Randy

I don't think I criticised the end result. Just the cost, the time it took to construct, and the fact we don't/can't use it as a staging point. The ISS mass is supposed to be 420 metric tonnes. The Saturn V could lift 140 metric tonnes, but only half way to the height the ISS is currently stationed. I expect that mass figure to be lower due to the inclination, and the extra height required. So just on mass it's going to be 4 or more flights + 1 for supplies. I don't have a sense of how many components could be launched on a single rocket though, as there are no wikipedia details of the Saturn V's payload dimensions.

Online Coastal Ron

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #368 on: 11/21/2016 11:46 pm »
[So you've singularly failed to answer the actual question, so I'm going to have to guess at your implied answers.

Lots of issues here, so I'm not knowingly not answering whatever question you thought was the actual question.  Especially since I was the one that started the conversation...

Quote
You think state backed launch service providers will stick with indigenously developed launchers even if a reusable SSTO was for sale for nationalistic reasons.

Yep.

Quote
...the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation will buy some just to take apart and reverse engineer...

Nah.  They'll just steal the designs and documents, which is far better than trying to reverse engineer something.

Quote
Misconstrued word choice, two nations divided by a language.

Happens even within the same country, so no worries.

Quote
I didn't mean Space Program in that narrow national sense but in the sense of having a space Industry that puts things in orbit and gets things done there, public/private is irrelevant to what I meant.

A country can have a wish, but just because they wish it to be so doesn't mean it will.  Coming up with a successful product or service takes a lot of work, and to a degree, luck.

Quote
Thus when I talk about having a space industry vis à via an indigenously built one I'm implicitly not talking about developing Skylon I'm saying any space company choosing to operate launches from here would be good and produce economic gains for the national economy...

Building Skylon would provide an economic benefit, wouldn't it?  Because once they sell a Skylon, I would imagine chances are it won't launch from the UK, so the only economic benefit would be from the building and selling of Skylon vehicles.  That would be my observation.

Quote
as studies of Skylon show it would

Uh, anyone could come up with a study to "prove" something will happen.  However no one really knows until it becomes reality.  Just saying...


Quote
And that's state support. The state paid for something and then gave it away free to SpaceX.

No, U.S. Taxpayers (individuals and companies) paid for it.  And by law, NASA must share their research with U.S. companies.

Quote
The UK has invested $90million in REL, which was held up for two years while it was evaluated over whether it was illegal state aid, while NASA has spent $3144.6million on SpaceX over the same period...

NASA paid SpaceX to perform services for NASA.  So that is not the same as what you are describing.  Apples & oranges.

Quote
I think you might be under the illusion that state support is bad...

No.  I just like to keep the lines clear on what is state aid and what is payment for services rendered.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline Star One

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #369 on: 11/21/2016 11:59 pm »
I think this is very encouraging for REL:
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/where-winners-can-emerge-and-grow/

Hopefully it/something similar to this initiative can be delivered.

I can see this (if it ever happens) manifesting itself in UK defence projects and I think that would be the best outcome for REL. I noticed a few months ago that the RAF launched a competition for 16-18 year olds to "design" a SABRE engine based long distance transport aircraft. if the UK can fund it's own Small launcher craft through the UKSA (MPs have been determined to create a larger scale national space programme) and an RAF funded large military transport craft in the mould of the 2 platforms on RELs new website, that would be a great strategy. the manufacturer, most likely a BAE (and possibly an additional partner) could simply commercialise the platforms for a fraction of the cost that developing the commercial platforms from scratch would cost.

Also, point 5 in the extremely well written article below would seem to suggest that May is thinking along these lines too:

http://www.politico.eu/article/5-takeaways-from-theresa-mays-speech-to-business-leaders/

As a Brit very excited about RELs tech, I really hope that is how it pans out.
Well you're going to be disappointed then with the predicted huge budget shortfall which I expect we'll hear more of at the autumn statement this just isn't going to happen.

After all the argument could be made as to why should the British taxpayer fund this when hopefully BAE will be able to get the USAF sufficiently interested in the technology that they will pick up the tab to develop it further.
« Last Edit: 11/22/2016 07:29 am by Star One »

Offline t43562

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #370 on: 11/22/2016 06:49 am »

Quote
I think you might be under the illusion that state support is bad...

No.  I just like to keep the lines clear on what is state aid and what is payment for services rendered.

I think you mean keeping the line unclear.  However you weasel around it, the state is helping an industrial sector to compete against foreigners - for whatever reasons and with whatever justification. Whether or not they have a right to is completely beside the point - I don't care about that and I can't see anyone else here who does.  It only matters in as much as it seems improbable at this time that one might survive without such arrangements.

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #371 on: 11/22/2016 07:48 am »

Quote
I think you might be under the illusion that state support is bad...

No.  I just like to keep the lines clear on what is state aid and what is payment for services rendered.

I think you mean keeping the line unclear.  However you weasel around it, the state is helping an industrial sector to compete against foreigners - for whatever reasons and with whatever justification. Whether or not they have a right to is completely beside the point - I don't care about that and I can't see anyone else here who does.  It only matters in as much as it seems improbable at this time that one might survive without such arrangements.

No, Ron is right, there's a very clear line between payment for goods and services and payment that is not in exchange for goods and services, or above the price the government would have to pay for those goods and services from another source.  There's no weaselling involved.  It's the distinction that makes the most sense to make.

It's the difference between business and charity.

Offline john smith 19

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #372 on: 11/22/2016 08:31 am »
Nah.  They'll just steal the designs and documents, which is far better than trying to reverse engineer something.
They might like to study how well that worked out for the Russian Tu144 programme.
Stealing plans does not necessarily mean you understand what you're looking at.  :(
Quote
Building Skylon would provide an economic benefit, wouldn't it?  Because once they sell a Skylon, I would imagine chances are it won't launch from the UK, so the only economic benefit would be from the building and selling of Skylon vehicles.  That would be my observation.
There are some orbits that are quite accessible from the UK. Skylon servicing would probably be based there as well.
Quote
Uh, anyone could come up with a study to "prove" something will happen.  However no one really knows until it becomes reality.  Just saying...
Depends on the methodology and the transparency of that methodology.

Read enough studies and you can usually see where someone has "cooked" the results, along with certain consultancies being more prone to it than others.    :(
No one can 'break' a circle that in fact does NOT exist. Note that there IS a "demand" and a "market" in existence, the fact that it is not as large or extensive as some would like and that it does not in fact 'service' a market that does not exist but which some want to exist is totally beside the point.
But it does exist, which Skylon can service.
Quote
The fallacy here is "we" need to "make" destinations and markets for reusable SSTO, (and yes that's the main argument FOR SSTO by the way) by building an extensive LEO orbital infrastructure for them to service.
And it's one that REL is aware of and does not subscribe. Enable yes, require, no.
Quote
Not so obviously does this apply to SSTO vehicles mostly for the fact that MOST SSTO concepts have never managed to reach a comparable operational payload to an ELV or multistage reusable vehicle. Note I wrote "operational payload" rather than just 'payload' because in fact while Skylon is an SSTO it does in fact require a second stage to allow getting the 'payload' to the most in-demand destinations despite that fact. But at least REL was realistic about that and therefore designed the Skylon with more capacity than the average SSTO concept.
But note Skylon can support an "all electric" design by starting outside the Van Allan belts.
Quote

Are there any other SSTO concepts out there in development? No, for the most part they have been found to be lacking in both economy and utility as has been pointed out.

(Note though; in fact neither Musk or Beezos did much 'due-diligence' work on anything OTHER than the concepts they went forward with. Neither considered for example any type of air-breathing or horizontal take off/landing concepts as they did not consider them 'viable' BEFORE they began design trade studies. They already had made up their minds on what would and would not be included in the 'trades' of the designs) Pure-rocket powered VTOL SSTO's have in fact been suggested and pushed for decades but none have reached even prototype flight status. (No the DC-X was NOT a flight prototype but a very limited VTOL demonstrator) And for good reason as they suffer from a lack of payload in comparison to any multistage design and normally require much more complex and expensive technology to achieve.
Something I'd like people to keep in mind.  Let's just repeat that for people who think either of them looked at Skylon:

neither Musk or Beezos did much 'due-diligence' work on anything OTHER than the concepts they went forward with.
Quote
And lastly on which is the better 'strategy' of builder/operator or builder to owner/operator for the most part the differing sides seem bound and determined to ignore history and reality to make their point :)
The latter ALWAYS takes over from the former once a certain level of traffic is reached as the builders can no longer afford to do both they inevitably form partnerships/consortiums to "buy" the vehicles and then own and operate them while they then concentrate on design and manufacture of new and improved vehicles. REL is simply assuming that the traffic levels will hit the levels that both SpaceX and BO are PLANNING on reaching and planning accordingly while SpaceX and BO are currently not looking to that point. Yet.
Careful about "historical inevitability"   :)

While the market should transition to separate mfg and operators note that US market, where Boeing/TWA was probably broken up before this stage. IOW government intervention accelerated the split. 

But any kind of VTO rocket is a potential ICBM so the odds on bet is govt intervention will be negative. I don't see ULA, SX or Blue setting up a Guianna branch any time soon, do you?

Skylon does not look like an ICBM. It does not fly like an ICBM. It's very difficult to modify into an ICBM or an ICBM delivery vehicle and if you have the skills to do so you can probably make an ICBM yourself, so why bother?

Only the REL business model (and something like it's architecture) have a chance of getting away, of unifying the market by giving the economies of scale of a large market IE every payload on the planet but giving individual countries (or even corporations) the security of delivery of their payload.

Telecos talk about the "last mile" of cable being the most expensive because there's so much of it to maintain and the individual payoff is so small but in space launch it's the first 100-200Km that's the major PITA. Skylon take that away in a way that no nation based rocket programme (and that includes Blue or SX) can ever do.
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline RanulfC

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #373 on: 11/22/2016 03:26 pm »
Just to nit-pick one thing. I did specify that the exploding thing was a hindrance to human presence, not cargo. Annual rocket failures seem to be bumping around in the 5% area, so 1 in 20 flights frequently has a fiery, premature end. Go to Heathrow and tell all those business and tourist travelers that every flight has a 1 in 20 chance of catastrophic failure, killing everyone aboard. Excluding the mentally ill, suicidal and people under extreme duress, I'll take a wild stab in the dark that zero people would choose to fly. Even if they were, there'd be no pilots or cabin staff willing to roll that D20-of-death every time they did their job. Hopefully the abort system in the SpaceX Dragon module will at least mean that it's just very expensive, instead of tragic.

Closer to 4% really (86 launches/5 failures in 2015, 72/1 this year) but the whole point was that humans ARE treated differently than cargo as in most transportation systems. Transport systems make a specific point to assure travelers that they have little chance of dying even in the worst case and given a "better than even" chance to survive an accident most people will willingly keep travelling. You would also be lying, (and liable :) ) if you told anyone that was their 'chances' in a launch accident since it's quite obvious that there are systems in place to keep the PEOPLE alive in the case of a failure. (None of the travelers at Heathrow have that option though and it does not seem to effect travel statistics)

According to many on this site if given the opportunity they would volunteer to ride a Dragon-1 WITHOUT an abort system come what may so I'd watch out throwing around the accusations of only the "mentally ill, suicidal and people under extreme duress" being willing to take their chances. If you've been over to the SpaceX ITS threads you'll note one discussing the lack of an abort system on the ITS which does in fact 'bother' some people but as noted it is in fact similar to current aircraft in that regard. If you are on an airplane that crashes you have no way of escaping and have to ride the plane to whatever the end point is, similarly if you were a passenger on Skylon you and the airframe are 'wedded' in fates. SSTO tends to assume a higher margin for 'safety' than a multistage design but in fact there is no basis for that assumption other than the "fact" that over their evolution most OTHER transport systems are 'technically' "single-stage" vehicles that have become much safer over time. Note that is OVER TIME during which they continually got safer and more efficient as they evolved.

My point is and was that the "chances" of dying being launched in a current rocket are no worse than most other transportation accidents SPECIFICALLY because passenger transport is currently considered and addressed as a safety issue. This is only "different" in designs that assume, with no data to back that up, that the vehicle is much 'safer' because it emulates a CURRENTLY "more safe" evolved design of another form of transportation. AKA it's "safer" because it resembles and airplane which is rather silly because what it looks like has almost nothing to do with what it actually DOES over the majority of it's flight and over that flight conditions change radically from anything any "airplane" does except the very beginning and very end.

Skylon is still a LAUNCH VEHICLE with all that implies.

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline RanulfC

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #374 on: 11/22/2016 04:02 pm »
I don't think I criticised the end result. Just the cost, the time it took to construct, and the fact we don't/can't use it as a staging point.

That pretty much IS criticizing the "end result" you realize? :) And frankly all those factors were part of the "process" of the design and construction which were all based on the authorization and political factors. Specifically it was never meant to be, (and frankly was authorized as not being usable as) a staging point as NASA was never authorized to do anything beyond LEO at the time. (Still have not been authorized to do so by Congress I might add)

In fact it COULD be used for staging beyond LEO work though it isn't optimal for such purposes. The main problem is the ISS has specifically been made a "national laboratory" by act of Congress which means it's "research" mission is and has priority over any other use and it already has major issues due to crew movement and thruster action that impedes the microgravity studies.

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The ISS mass is supposed to be 420 metric tonnes. The Saturn V could lift 140 metric tonnes, but only half way to the height the ISS is currently stationed. I expect that mass figure to be lower due to the inclination, and the extra height required. So just on mass it's going to be 4 or more flights + 1 for supplies. I don't have a sense of how many components could be launched on a single rocket though, as there are no wikipedia details of the Saturn V's payload dimensions.

75 to about 161 tonnes depending on the model, you could 'hammerhead' the payload but a general figure is 10.06m/33ft in diameter and somewhere between 14 to 30m (45-98ft) in length depending on mass. (http://www.astronautix.com/s/saturnv.html) The problem is it wouldn't be any more 'economic' or usable even with far less flights, more especially with far less flights :)

It might have cost less if the launches had been done commercially, it almost certainly would have cost less if it had a commercial purpose and wasn't restricted to the needs of allowing Russian participation by inclination but you have to consider that having Russian access might actually have commercial applications. But that all depends on there being 'commercial' applications for a space station which at this point-in-time is not as clear as it might be. (Frankly we need to do some major research into microgravity industrial applications but, again, this is currently something that Congress has specifically NOT authorized as part of the ISS mission) But to build it with commercial launchers would have taken much longer so you have to make some choices which will lead to both the type and architecture of the station being built.

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline lkm

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #375 on: 11/22/2016 05:44 pm »
[So you've singularly failed to answer the actual question, so I'm going to have to guess at your implied answers.

Lots of issues here, so I'm not knowingly not answering whatever question you thought was the actual question.  Especially since I was the one that started the conversation...
You quoted me asking a simple direct question and then replied with 200 words failing to answer it.
You think state backed launch service providers will stick with indigenously developed launchers even if a reusable SSTO was for sale for nationalistic reasons.

Yep.
And do also accept that's a political argument?

Thus when I talk about having a space industry vis à via an indigenously built one I'm implicitly not talking about developing Skylon I'm saying any space company choosing to operate launches from here would be good and produce economic gains for the national economy...

Building Skylon would provide an economic benefit, wouldn't it?  Because once they sell a Skylon, I would imagine chances are it won't launch from the UK, so the only economic benefit would be from the building and selling of Skylon vehicles.  That would be my observation.

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as studies of Skylon show it would

Uh, anyone could come up with a study to "prove" something will happen.  However no one really knows until it becomes reality.  Just saying...
Ok, so to be clear, that's the policy of the UK government, UKSpace, the U.K. space industry body, and multiple studies carried out by London Economics upon which these policies are based.
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SABRE could potentially create 21,000 high value engineering and manufacturing jobs and maximise the UK’s access to a conservatively estimated £13.8bn launcher market over the next thirty years as well as provide economic benefits from spillovers. London Economics estimated the socio‐economic impacts for Europe of a SKYLON‐based European Launch Service Operator at €20‐24bn in Net Present Value terms (2014 prices, nominally 30 years)


And that's state support. The state paid for something and then gave it away free to SpaceX.

No, U.S. Taxpayers (individuals and companies) paid for it.  And by law, NASA must share their research with U.S. companies.
Ah but really it was the taxpayer's employers who paid for it, no actually it was the consumers of those businesses who employed those taxpayers who paid for it, no it must have been the employers of those customers of those businesses who employed those taxpayers who paid for it.
 It's turtles all the way down!

The UK has invested $90million in REL, which was held up for two years while it was evaluated over whether it was illegal state aid, while NASA has spent $3144.6million on SpaceX over the same period...

NASA paid SpaceX to perform services for NASA.  So that is not the same as what you are describing.  Apples & oranges.

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I think you might be under the illusion that state support is bad...

No.  I just like to keep the lines clear on what is state aid and what is payment for services rendered.
Ah. State Support is not State Aid. State aid has a clearly defined legal meaning, it's a small illegal subset of state support. I've been talking about state support.
You'll note my example of UK state support was explicitly ruled not state aid.
State support is everything a state can do, either through regulation, legislation, infrastructure spending, investment or procurement that will encourage a desirable outcome for any particular business, industrial sector or demographic and the state itself. It's the tool of an active state with an industrial policy.
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In November 2005, Dr. Griffin articulated that:
With the advent of the ISS, there will exist for the first time a strong, identifiable market for "routine" transportation service to and from LEO, and that this will be only the first step in what will be a huge opportunity for truly commercial space enterprise. We believe that when we engage the engine of competition, these services will be provided in a more cost-effective fashion than when the government has to do it.[7]
The state wanted to support commercial space enterprise and created an policy to do that.



Offline Lars-J

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #376 on: 11/22/2016 06:39 pm »
Something I'd like people to keep in mind.  Let's just repeat that for people who think either of them looked at Skylon:

neither Musk or Beezos did much 'due-diligence' work on anything OTHER than the concepts they went forward with.

 ::)  Repeating such an assertion does not make it any more true.

Offline knowles2

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #377 on: 11/22/2016 07:00 pm »
I'm bit confuse by Theresa May promises actually because the current R&D budget is 4.6 billion and been frozen since 2011, so is she promising this to be increase to 6.6 billion by 2020?

An given how this government "extra" money often end up coming from a different pot of money in the same department, I'm not sure I believe this will actually be new money.

An how much of this extra money is going to be use just cover things that have been delayed since 2011 because of the frozen budgets or deal with a backlog of replacing and repairing equipment and labs, pay rises.

An potentially how much of money will simply be in forms which can only be access if you already got an investor, tax reductions, tax credits and allowances.

This "not picking" winner mantra of the government really doesn't help get large, medium or small scale projects off the ground, in fact it often delays projects for months if not years why people, companies search for private investors. It only by government or ideal a team of scientist and engineers picking winners will we really transform the UK lack of success in getting projects out of the lab into the wild creating jobs.
« Last Edit: 11/22/2016 07:43 pm by knowles2 »

Offline knowles2

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #378 on: 11/22/2016 07:36 pm »
I think this is very encouraging for REL:
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/where-winners-can-emerge-and-grow/

Hopefully it/something similar to this initiative can be delivered.

I can see this (if it ever happens) manifesting itself in UK defence projects and I think that would be the best outcome for REL. I noticed a few months ago that the RAF launched a competition for 16-18 year olds to "design" a SABRE engine based long distance transport aircraft. if the UK can fund it's own Small launcher craft through the UKSA (MPs have been determined to create a larger scale national space programme) and an RAF funded large military transport craft in the mould of the 2 platforms on RELs new website, that would be a great strategy. the manufacturer, most likely a BAE (and possibly an additional partner) could simply commercialise the platforms for a fraction of the cost that developing the commercial platforms from scratch would cost.

Also, point 5 in the extremely well written article below would seem to suggest that May is thinking along these lines too:

http://www.politico.eu/article/5-takeaways-from-theresa-mays-speech-to-business-leaders/

As a Brit very excited about RELs tech, I really hope that is how it pans out.
Well you're going to be disappointed then with the predicted huge budget shortfall which I expect we'll hear more of at the autumn statement this just isn't going to happen.

After all the argument could be made as to why should the British taxpayer fund this when hopefully BAE will be able to get the USAF sufficiently interested in the technology that they will pick up the tab to develop it further.
BAE will only fund

Because USAF beholden by laws passed by congress will insist manufacturing, R&D and testing takes place in the US so the UK will lose out on jobs and potentially tax revenue. An that will be even more so the case under Trump presidency.

Budget shortfalls is going to have less meaning than ever before because the only way the UK is going to survive Brexit is substantial investments in programs like Skylon and other scientific research and development projects, large, medium and small and infrastructure, and I think Hammon have or will realise that the time of cuts for the vast majority of governments departments is well and truly over, he is going to have demands for money coming from every direction an that simply the money to cover the costs of leaving the EU. Even threesome (Fox, Davis, Boris) are starting to realise leaving the EU isn't as easy as their Master Farage told them it would be.

This is why I suspect either this budget or the next we are going see government raising substantial sums of money via tax rises, because they pretty much sold off all the family silver, what taxes will rise is the question.

BAE seemingly only interested in taking on MOD projects, which is tax funded anyway.

Offline RanulfC

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Re: The Reaction Engines Skylon Master Thread (6)
« Reply #379 on: 11/22/2016 08:20 pm »
Something I'd like people to keep in mind.  Let's just repeat that for people who think either of them looked at Skylon:

neither Musk or Beezos did much 'due-diligence' work on anything OTHER than the concepts they went forward with.

 ::)  Repeating such an assertion does not make it any more true.

Repeating the truth no matter how much some people may not like it does not make the statement false either :)

Both projects started with clear bias which were stated and quite visible up-front. No concepts beyond those already in mind were considered or 'traded' and this has been stated by both SX and BO. Neither considers Skylon as a viable concept, more to the point neither has any consideration that an air-breathing rocket engine capable of operation from zero-to-Mach 20 has any 'use' in their plans.

Both Musk and Beezos started with an idea of what they wanted in the end to have, it is no surprise that they ended up with pretty much what they wanted in the first place. There is no evidence that they seriously considered any concepts or ideas that did not fit their already pre-conceived ideas on what they would end up with, (which oddly enough is something REL is accused of doing as if it were a "bad" thing) and there IS evidence that the only 'trades' done were within the already defined parameters rather than anything more general and inclusive.

This isn't necessarily a "bad" thing as it allowed them to focus on what they felt was the 'optimum' solution to the situation and in the case of SX since they were "taking on" the already established industry in part to show that the process itself rather than any single design was faulty this makes sense.

It should also be very clear that while both companies have established that they can in fact 'beat' the bigger companies at their own game given the chance it should also be established they are doing so by playing the same game as those bigger companies rather than changing the rules as is often suggested. What SX and BO have done is nothing that anyone else with the same resources and drive could not accomplish in fact both LM and Boeing have proposed similar systems in the past and have been unable to 'sell' them at that time. Times have changed somewhat and both SX and BO have seized an opportunity to move their concepts forward but they remain very much wedded to the current operational space launch concept.

REL/Skylon/SABRE has also garnered increased interest and support if not at the same level and despite how much supporters of the straight SSTO concept feel 'let-down' by discussion of using SABRE in a TSTO concept the main point remains that its a complex and un-tried propulsion system that needs to be proven* in practice before it will be accepted so any forward progress IS progress :)

*=To put it mildly I am 'irked' significantly that in reality EVERYTHING about the SABRE concept has in fact been shown to be practical and hardware, (test if not flight weight) was tested to show this in the late 50s and early 60s but was dropped in the rush to accept that "Liquid Air Cycle," "Hypersonic Cruise" and "SCRamjets" were "required" for any air-breathing orbital concept. Coupled with the more recent, (and seemingly more pervasive) attitude that anything with 'wings' is the "Shuttle and therefor can never work as suggested" it makes it difficult to believe anyone can actually significantly lower the cost of space access when they refuse to actually examine all the possibilities rather than sticking to the 'usual' assumptions.

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

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