The Reaction Engines Skylon/SABRE Master Thread (6)

[john smith 19]

In truth given Musk's end game is Mars it would be very surprising if he'd taken any kind of serious look at SABRESkylon since SABRE shines in a HTOL vehicle.

No one who's followed Musk would be surprised at this. Musk and SX are focused on Mars and this has allowed them to filter everything through 1 simple question. "Does this get Elon to Mars faster, cheaper, safer or not."  That's lead them to turning down at least one concept already and of course the F3 and F5 never left the CAD screen. Not needed, not saleable and not going get Elon to Mars faster.

He thinks he can get the improvement in launch costs with an architecture that works on Earth and Mars. Time will tell if he's right.

Can we leave the "celebrity endorsements" AKA "The Halo Effect" to professional athletes, musicians and the Kardashian family, please?

[knowles2]

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.

Not quite.

In the UK, anything winged, big and fast was viewed like Concorde, which British civil servants had a horror of repeating. 

It has literally taken the retirement or death of a generation of senior civil servants, to get the UKG to consider helping (slightly) a UK company do a winged vehicle and a launch vehicle.   

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.

OK then where have they mentioned when either of them said they looked at HTOL and concluded it was unworkable?

Given Musk's goal has always been Mars I doubt he spent a second on the idea. As anyone with a cursory knowledge of spaceflight and general engineering would expect. REL don't want to build a Skylon that can land on Mars. They'd be happy to enable a greatly cheaper Mars mission based on Skylon flights to LEO however.

So where did Bezos mention this? Interview? Media event? Tweets?

You seem so very sure he's wrong. Do you have facts or just your simple faith to guide you?

Even if Musk did look at Skylon and Sabre engine it wouldn't have taken him long to realise that he didn't  have the personal wealth back in 2003 to fund RE to the point where they could launch cargo into orbit and start making money.  It slightly different for Jeff Bezos, he probably could fund the development of Sabre and Skylon into a functioning craft from his personal wealth, we don't know if he has even looked at it, it very possible he did, he make an offer but may be RE turn him down because they didn't want to deal with ITAR. We will probably never whether he did or didn't.  Jeff Bezos intentions with Blue origin are very opaq.

[93143]

He's looked at the numbers and it didn't make sense to him.

As we've discussed before, it's pretty clear from the quote that he didn't know much about SABRE/Skylon; it sounds like he was talking about a jet-augmented first stage, probably VTO.  Which doesn't make sense, and also doesn't have much to do with Skylon.

If you treat SABRE as a linear delta applied to the Falcon 9, it will not look useful.  Skylon is a radically different approach, and from that quote it sounds like he didn't even know it existed.

[Coastal Ron]

I think you're arguing about something different - like you're making some defensive WTO presentation about protectionism. That is not relevant to Skylon or this thread.

I was responding to the accusation that SpaceX having access to taxpayer funded research was evidence of SpaceX being stated supported.  It's not.

I'm trying to point out something quite different which is that without a similar arrangement I think it is going to be difficult to see Skylon and SABRE take off.  I think some government needs to make up some random goal (e.g. "provide sovereign access to space" or some other nonsense) and put it out to contract in such a way that Reaction Engines and possibly several other smaller developers are highly likely to get a big chunk of money and can demonstrate whatever :-).  It could be the same as an air ministry specification for a new aircraft.

The UK is a partner in the ISS, so why not create a UK Commercial Cargo program?

But just to be clear, having the UK government pay a domestic company to create a capability, without the UK government really needing that capability, would appear to be a subsidy.

NASA had a need to resupply the ISS, and it held an open competition to find potential providers.  So that was a real need for services, and NASA has only paid for services rendered.  So not a subsidy.

Essentially providing money for a goal that isn't commercial is what I mean.

The goal doesn't have to be commercial, but there needs to be a real need.

[docmordrid]

Roll Call reports Trump may expand the military space sector in several areas, including space weaponry. This may give a REL/USAF alliance a foothold.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/trump-gop-give-space-weapons-close-look

[t43562]

I think you're arguing about something different - like you're making some defensive WTO presentation about protectionism. That is not relevant to Skylon or this thread.

I was responding to the accusation that SpaceX having access to taxpayer funded research was evidence of SpaceX being stated supported.  It's not.

I'm trying to point out something quite different which is that without a similar arrangement I think it is going to be difficult to see Skylon and SABRE take off.  I think some government needs to make up some random goal (e.g. "provide sovereign access to space" or some other nonsense) and put it out to contract in such a way that Reaction Engines and possibly several other smaller developers are highly likely to get a big chunk of money and can demonstrate whatever :-).  It could be the same as an air ministry specification for a new aircraft.

The UK is a partner in the ISS, so why not create a UK Commercial Cargo program?

But just to be clear, having the UK government pay a domestic company to create a capability, without the UK government really needing that capability, would appear to be a subsidy.

NASA had a need to resupply the ISS, and it held an open competition to find potential providers.  So that was a real need for services, and NASA has only paid for services rendered.  So not a subsidy.

Essentially providing money for a goal that isn't commercial is what I mean.

The goal doesn't have to be commercial, but there needs to be a real need.

There are other rockets now so there is no "need to resupply".  The ISS itself is not a critical national asset. Crucially, I think, the ISS is not a business - it's whatever you think it is - a vehicle to spend money or a research platform or whatever.

[high road]

I'm trying to point out something quite different which is that without a similar arrangement I think it is going to be difficult to see Skylon and SABRE take off.  I think some government needs to make up some random goal (e.g. "provide sovereign access to space" or some other nonsense) and put it out to contract in such a way that Reaction Engines and possibly several other smaller developers are highly likely to get a big chunk of money and can demonstrate whatever :-).  It could be the same as an air ministry specification for a new aircraft.

The UK is a partner in the ISS, so why not create a UK Commercial Cargo program?

But just to be clear, having the UK government pay a domestic company to create a capability, without the UK government really needing that capability, would appear to be a subsidy.

NASA had a need to resupply the ISS, and it held an open competition to find potential providers.  So that was a real need for services, and NASA has only paid for services rendered.  So not a subsidy.

So a programme with "some development funding plus the purchase of several demonstration flights by NASA UK/ESA" for a Falcon 9 HOTOL/SSTO reusable spacecraft, open only to UK/ESA suppliers, to answer to their need to remain relevant in the upcoming decades and not having to buy Russian American rides, would exactly be the kind of subsidy support Skylon would be happy to have, and would have exactly the same 'need'.

A bit on the expensive side for the UK alone and ArianeSpace probably has enough influence to block/kill by red tape any initiative by any or all ESA members. How about they do the same for the development of the engine that's supposed to drive this thing: build a small test version, a full size version, a test frame and the entire thing.

[lkm]

I think you're arguing about something different - like you're making some defensive WTO presentation about protectionism. That is not relevant to Skylon or this thread.

I was responding to the accusation that SpaceX having access to taxpayer funded research was evidence of SpaceX being stated supported.  It's not.

I'm trying to point out something quite different which is that without a similar arrangement I think it is going to be difficult to see Skylon and SABRE take off.  I think some government needs to make up some random goal (e.g. "provide sovereign access to space" or some other nonsense) and put it out to contract in such a way that Reaction Engines and possibly several other smaller developers are highly likely to get a big chunk of money and can demonstrate whatever :-).  It could be the same as an air ministry specification for a new aircraft.

The UK is a partner in the ISS, so why not create a UK Commercial Cargo program?

But just to be clear, having the UK government pay a domestic company to create a capability, without the UK government really needing that capability, would appear to be a subsidy.

NASA had a need to resupply the ISS, and it held an open competition to find potential providers.  So that was a real need for services, and NASA has only paid for services rendered.  So not a subsidy.

Essentially providing money for a goal that isn't commercial is what I mean.

The goal doesn't have to be commercial, but there needs to be a real need.

You're not getting the difference between state support and state aid. State support doesn't mean an industry has received a subsidy. It means policy decisions were taken to favour it.
NASA didn't need a new system to resupply the ISS, it had one already, but a policy decision was taken to retire it. It didn't need to turn the requirement over to commercial space, it could have sourced it from its traditional suppliers, it could have put beo orion/ Aeres on the back burner and put a simpler Leo Orion on DeltaIV, it could have bought ATV's and launched them with ULA. There were a whole host alternative options and choosing the one it did was a policy decision.
UK could take a policy decision that it wants to explore the hypersonic bomber design space with funding an experimental vehicle which just happens to have SABRE engines, that wouldn't be state aid, but it would be state support.

[Coastal Ron]

There are other rockets now so there is no "need to resupply".

Just to restate, while SpaceX was paid to create Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew capabilities that met NASA's requirements for making deliveries to/from the ISS, NASA (or the U.S. Government in general) never directly paid SpaceX to develop the Falcon 9.

As to "other rockets", redundancy was one of the main goals for the Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew programs, so removing part of that redundancy wouldn't make sense - especially since there is no need to remove any.  Plus, currently only the Atlas V could carry the Dragon spacecraft, which means removing the Falcon 9 from use would remove the Dragon spacecraft from service - which would eliminate NASA's only way to return large amounts of cargo from the ISS.  In other words, no one in their right mind would consider doing that...

The ISS itself is not a critical national asset.

The ISS is designated as a United Stated Government "National Laboratory".  Such designations are not given to low priority assets.

Crucially, I think, the ISS is not a business - it's whatever you think it is - a vehicle to spend money or a research platform or whatever.

No, of course the ISS is not a business.  And I know of no one that has claimed that it is.

However just like any facility, the ISS needs to be supplied with people, provisions, supplies, spare parts, and other items.  And given it's remoteness, that's why people often use the science stations in the Antarctic as analogies for how the ISS has to be supported.

So the support functions for the ISS are partly government, but NASA has been trying to transition as much as possible to the private sector by paying contractors to do the work NASA no longer wants to do, or can't do (such as cargo and crew resupply).

Are you expecting companies to do that kind of support for free?

As for the Skylon, I understand how the UK government would want to support indigenous technology development - and that is something a government should do.  The challenge becomes when Skylon would transition out of development and into production and commercial sales, and whether the UK government is part of funding that portion.

[Coastal Ron]

So a programme with "some development funding plus the purchase of several demonstration flights...

And...

You're not getting the difference between state support and state aid.

Personally, as a U.S. citizen, I don't care how the UK government spends it's money, so I'm not going to debate the merits of Sklyon funding.

This topic only came up because it was claimed that the Falcon 9 rocket was somehow subsidized - which the facts show it wasn't.

In general though, just like with any transportation system (which includes NASA's SLS), in order to succeed there will need to be a large enough demand for launch services.  That demand could come from the existing market, or it could be created by lowering the price of launches or providing services that don't exist today which creates a new segment of the market.  This last part of certainly what SpaceX is hoping for with their reusable Falcon 9.

So it looks like we're still waiting to better understand if SpaceX has read the market correctly, and depending on that it will give us an indication of what the potential market is for the Skylon.

[lkm]

You're not getting the difference between state support and state aid.

Personally, as a U.S. citizen, I don't care how the UK government spends it's money, so I'm not going to debate the merits of Sklyon funding.

And I wasn't trying to discuss it in anyway other than using it as a basis for examples to try and help you understand the difference between state aid (bad) and state support (good).

This topic only came up because it was claimed that the Falcon 9 rocket was somehow subsidized - which the facts show it wasn't.

That topic wasn't raised by anyone but you because that would be state aid and nobody has claimed it received state aid. It was only pointed that it has received state support throughout its life as evidenced by facts, reality and common sense.
But I'm coming to doubt that your personal politics will let you acknowledge that.

In general though, just like with any transportation system (which includes NASA's SLS), in order to succeed there will need to be a large enough demand for launch services.  That demand could come from the existing market, or it could be created by lowering the price of launches or providing services that don't exist today which creates a new segment of the market.  This last part of certainly what SpaceX is hoping for with their reusable Falcon 9.

So it looks like we're still waiting to better understand if SpaceX has read the market correctly, and depending on that it will give us an indication of what the potential market is for the Skylon.

Assuming you mean a rising tide floats all boats then that's something we can agree on with respect to Skylon, SpaceX and commercial space but I would disagree with respect to SLS.
The SLS doesn't have to live or die by demand because it is in effect it's own demand. It exists at the will of congress, its payloads exist at the will of congress, therefore if congress wishes it to continue to exist it will continue to exist, demand follows the  will for SLS to exist, not the other way around.
 NASA only functions effectively when the agency, the legislature and the executive are all pulling in the same direction and historically the legislature has been principal in setting the direction. The SLS will exist as long as the legislature want it to exist, how effective it will be depends on the agency and the executive getting behind that.

[john smith 19]

As for the Skylon, I understand how the UK government would want to support indigenous technology development - and that is something a government should do.  The challenge becomes when Skylon would transition out of development and into production and commercial sales, and whether the UK government is part of funding that portion.

REL has always sought to strongly avoid being primarily state funded project. Ironically it's founders had as sour a view of working for the HMG on Concorde as the senior civil servants had of running the programme from the Governments PoV 

REL's plan has always been commercial finance, which is part of why the $12bn price tag, because in addition to the 400 flight test programme that included the interest payments back to commercial lenders.

Since Skylon is designed to be a launch vehicle not a launch service I think REL's preferred way would be for HMG to buy a Skylon. In practice this would mean something along the lines of a contract that legally commits them to a purchase at an (inflation adjusted) price in the future provided the vehicle meets it's performance specifications.

The trouble is of course in getting a government to buy something without the endless tinkering that government procurement seems to demand.

[ChrisWilson68]

I'm trying to point out something quite different which is that without a similar arrangement I think it is going to be difficult to see Skylon and SABRE take off.  I think some government needs to make up some random goal (e.g. "provide sovereign access to space" or some other nonsense) and put it out to contract in such a way that Reaction Engines and possibly several other smaller developers are highly likely to get a big chunk of money and can demonstrate whatever :-).  It could be the same as an air ministry specification for a new aircraft.

The UK is a partner in the ISS, so why not create a UK Commercial Cargo program?

But just to be clear, having the UK government pay a domestic company to create a capability, without the UK government really needing that capability, would appear to be a subsidy.

NASA had a need to resupply the ISS, and it held an open competition to find potential providers.  So that was a real need for services, and NASA has only paid for services rendered.  So not a subsidy.

So a programme with "some development funding plus the purchase of several demonstration flights by NASA UK/ESA" for a Falcon 9 HOTOL/SSTO reusable spacecraft, open only to UK/ESA suppliers, to answer to their need to remain relevant in the upcoming decades and not having to buy Russian American rides, would exactly be the kind of subsidy support Skylon would be happy to have, and would have exactly the same 'need'.

That's not the same at all.

The United States spends about $3 billion per year on the ISS.  The COTS program cost the United States about $400 million to develop a resupply system for the ISS.  That is a very modest portion of the overall ISS budget.  The ESA participates in ISS, but only some ESA members are included in this participation -- not including the UK!  Even if the UK did start to participate, it couldn't afford anything close to the $3 billion a year that the US spends.  And Skylon's projected budget is $15 billion, far more than development of Dragon under COTS.  So it doesn't add up -- having the UK spend far more for a system to supply a station it spends far less on.

More importantly, you're just making this up as a way to support Skylon.  The COTS program wasn't made up as a way to support SpaceX.  It was because the shuttle was too expensive and dangerous and the US was looking for a cheaper, safer alternative.

A bit on the expensive side for the UK alone and ArianeSpace probably has enough influence to block/kill by red tape any initiative by any or all ESA members. How about they do the same for the development of the engine that's supposed to drive this thing: build a small test version, a full size version, a test frame and the entire thing.

Then it's not at all comparable to COTS because they would be paying without getting a capability they need in return -- COTS gave the US the capability to resupply ISS.  Having the UK pay for some development of some components of Skylon would give them no capability.

[Asteroza]

Are you guys suggesting something of a cross between the ISS CCdev and something like PPA's (power purchase agreements)?

So a payload/mass on orbit purchase agreement, with tweaking to make expendables non-viable competitors? Perhaps like X kg to target SSO in max Y Kg increments on a monthly basis, same for GEO. How the UK burns their purchased mass allotment is up to them (including resale if they can't use it all), but if this leads to Skylon existing, that provides assured orbital access. If it leads to a TSTO competitor, then good for that maker at least.

In the end it's like a plus sized X-Prize...

Though that muddles the owner/operator/customer line unless the UK spins up a government corporation/NPO as the operator...

[high road]

I'm trying to point out something quite different which is that without a similar arrangement I think it is going to be difficult to see Skylon and SABRE take off.  I think some government needs to make up some random goal (e.g. "provide sovereign access to space" or some other nonsense) and put it out to contract in such a way that Reaction Engines and possibly several other smaller developers are highly likely to get a big chunk of money and can demonstrate whatever :-).  It could be the same as an air ministry specification for a new aircraft.

The UK is a partner in the ISS, so why not create a UK Commercial Cargo program?

But just to be clear, having the UK government pay a domestic company to create a capability, without the UK government really needing that capability, would appear to be a subsidy.

NASA had a need to resupply the ISS, and it held an open competition to find potential providers.  So that was a real need for services, and NASA has only paid for services rendered.  So not a subsidy.

So a programme with "some development funding plus the purchase of several demonstration flights by NASA UK/ESA" for a Falcon 9 HOTOL/SSTO reusable spacecraft, open only to UK/ESA suppliers, to answer to their need to remain relevant in the upcoming decades and not having to buy Russian American rides, would exactly be the kind of subsidy support Skylon would be happy to have, and would have exactly the same 'need'.

That's not the same at all.

The United States spends about $3 billion per year on the ISS.  The COTS program cost the United States about $400 million to develop a resupply system for the ISS.  That is a very modest portion of the overall ISS budget.  The ESA participates in ISS, but only some ESA members are included in this participation -- not including the UK!  Even if the UK did start to participate, it couldn't afford anything close to the $3 billion a year that the US spends.  And Skylon's projected budget is $15 billion, far more than development of Dragon under COTS.  So it doesn't add up -- having the UK spend far more for a system to supply a station it spends far less on.

More importantly, you're just making this up as a way to support Skylon.  The COTS program wasn't made up as a way to support SpaceX.  It was because the shuttle was too expensive and dangerous and the US was looking for a cheaper, safer alternative.

Both Skylon and Falcon 9 (would) do a lot more than 'supplying ISS'. The 'supplying ISS' part is done by Dragon, but NASA paid for "some development funding plus the purchase of several demonstration flights" for Falcon 9. Had they instead limited the funding to capsules launchable from existing rockets, or at least excluded the development of a new rocket that would be required to launch a new capsule, you'd be right. The real goal here is cheaper access to space, and the ability to buy rides domestic rather than Russian or European. You know, the other countries able (before ATV's retirement) to send craft to the ISS.

So the 'need' for the UK to fund it's own space launch system would be the ability to 'buy local', whether or not it participates in ISS. Just like the USA wants to buy domestic for access to space in general, including supplying ISS.

I quite agree that the costs don't add up for a single country, and perhaps not even for a group of cooperating member states like ESA. Just pointing out that NASA goes a little further than paying for the service upon delivery. It financially supports companies during development required to deliver the service. Which I think is a good thing, and should be copied in more areas. Not spaceflight alone. There are plenty of good initiatives that would benefit from some funding early on in exchange for demonstratable progress and eventual profitabilaty.

A bit on the expensive side for the UK alone and ArianeSpace probably has enough influence to block/kill by red tape any initiative by any or all ESA members. How about they do the same for the development of the engine that's supposed to drive this thing: build a small test version, a full size version, a test frame and the entire thing.

Then it's not at all comparable to COTS because they would be paying without getting a capability they need in return -- COTS gave the US the capability to resupply ISS.  Having the UK pay for some development of some components of Skylon would give them no capability.

Yeah, I rewrote that paragraph and forgot to change some of the sentences. I started out by ironically stating that they should start out with "some development funding" for the full size engine (which they already have). At that point, they would have an engine with the potential to revolutionize air travel/space launch if they sell it to any company that would like to implement it in it's own designs. That in itself is a pretty powerful 'need': national pride. Even if it would be Americans or Russians that would design the actual new generation of airplanes/launchers, it would be 'their' engine.

But to make it comparable to what NASA did for SpaceX, they would also have to pay for "some development funding plus the purchase of several demonstration flights" of the SABRE flight frame, and the eventual Skylon itself. At which point I do agree that the finances don't close. I only post in this thread every few months, but I've been repeatedly saying that the only focus should be on building and testing the SABRE engine. Skylon will have to be reevaluated based on the actual performance of the finished article. There are other HOTOL designs possible that aren't SSTO. Once the engine is finished, we'll be able to do the math on the different ideas. At that point we'll be able to see if Skylon comes out on top.

[ChrisWilson68]

Both Skylon and Falcon 9 (would) do a lot more than 'supplying ISS'.

That's irrelevant.  The COTS program was to buy the ability to resupply the ISS.  That Falcon 9 could or would do more is beside the point.  All that matters is what the money was paying for.  It was a fair exchange on both sides -- the government got the service it wanted and SpaceX got the money it wanted in exchange for providing that service.

If I pay Southwest for a ticket to fly from San Jose to Austin, I'm paying for them to transport me.  That they are using that in part to pay for a joint flight that also flies other people is irrelevant to the exchange between me and Southwest.

The 'supplying ISS' part is done by Dragon, but NASA paid for "some development funding plus the purchase of several demonstration flights" for Falcon 9.

Incorrect.  They paid for development funding and demonstrations flights for the complete system, including Dragon and Falcon 9, not for Falcon 9.

Had they instead limited the funding to capsules launchable from existing rockets, or at least excluded the development of a new rocket that would be required to launch a new capsule, you'd be right.

That's nuts.  There's no logical reason that it would matter whether SpaceX was using an existing launch vehicle or a new one.

The government was paying for results -- that is, they weren't paying for a rocket, they were paying for development of a system to delliver cargo to ISS and that system happened to include Falcon 9.

The real goal here is cheaper access to space, and the ability to buy rides domestic rather than Russian or European. You know, the other countries able (before ATV's retirement) to send craft to the ISS.

So the 'need' for the UK to fund it's own space launch system would be the ability to 'buy local', whether or not it participates in ISS. Just like the USA wants to buy domestic for access to space in general, including supplying ISS.

If the need would be there whether REL existed or not, it's not a subsidy, it's payment for services.  COTS meets this test, because it would have happened whether SpaceX existed or not.  In fact, the US was already meeting that need with Shuttle before SpaceX even existed, so the US clearly had a need it already felt was worth spending that much money on.

The UK has never before shown a need to spend such a huge amount on access to space.  The fact that it's coming up here, in the REL/Skylon forum, specifically as a way to fund REL makes it clear the so-called need is not really a need, it's a disguised subsidy.

I quite agree that the costs don't add up for a single country, and perhaps not even for a group of cooperating member states like ESA. Just pointing out that NASA goes a little further than paying for the service upon delivery. It financially supports companies during development required to deliver the service.

And that doesn't make it a subsidy, because it is supporting development so that it can buy the deliveries later.

Private companies do that all the time.  I used to work at a chip company.  Customers that wanted chips for their products would pay part of our development costs for those chips.  Not for all chips, mind you, just for chips that would have few, if any other customers.  Chips that would have many customers we would finance ourselves, because we wouldn't be dependent on any one customer.  But it would be foolish to pay for the development of a chip for one customer without being sure if that customer would actually buy the chip once it was developed.  It's exactly the same with COTS -- there's only one customer for US companies developing ISS delivery capability, and it would be foolish of the providers to pay all the development costs themselves without knowing if the customer would buy from them.

The point is whether the customer is paying to ultimately get a good or service it desires and a cost that is worth it to the customer.  If yes, it's just business.  If no, it's a subsidy.

COTS was not a subsidy.  The proposed funding of REL/SABRE/Skylon by the UK would be a subsidy.

[t43562]

COTS was not a subsidy.  The proposed funding of REL/SABRE/Skylon by the UK would be a subsidy.

Surely continuing to use Soyuz is a viable option and must be quite a lot cheaper than designing new rockets?  What's the business reason for replacing it and insisting on it being a US replacement?

[Kansan52]

What's the business reason for replacing it and insisting on it being a US replacement?

Business reason for SX and Boeing is $$.

Having more than only the Soyuz to come and go to the ISS is a logistic reason. (politics rules out the Chinese for another ride to the ISS)

National (USA) pride is a political reason.

[Star One]

Explaining the delays in funding for rocket-engine designer

The government in July 2013 announced it would invest 60 million pounds in Reaction Engines Ltd.’s space plane/hypersonic aircraft engine. But the money was slow in coming, in part because of the need to clear European Union state-aid regulations.

The funds began to arrive earlier this year, and Reaction Engines has said it always knew the process would be long.

The government’s statement says its funding decision “did not promise funding immediately, but was an in-principle decision to fund, subject to the development of a suitable business case…. Reaction Engines had not produced a suitable business case that met the government’s requirements.”

The company since has met the requirements and payments to Reaction Engines began in April, the government said. In addition, an ESA contract related to the company’s SABRE engine is under way.

The government did not say whether a post-Brexit Britain would be able to disregard European Union state aid rules.

- See more at: http://spacenews.com/britain-endorses-esa-promises-increased-export-credit-support-for-industry/#sthash.jHlbGphF.dpuf

[Coastal Ron]

COTS was not a subsidy.  The proposed funding of REL/SABRE/Skylon by the UK would be a subsidy.

Surely continuing to use Soyuz is a viable option...

Viable, sure if the goal is to keep the status quo on the ISS.  But the Soyuz can only carry three people, which has to include at least one Russian spacecraft commander, and there is little room for any down mass cargo.

Commercial Crew vehicles will be able to carry at least four people for NASA's needs, while also carrying up and down mass cargo.  With the ability to carry four people up, and to keep them there, the crew complement of the ISS can be raised from a limit of 6 to at least 7 - and that means a potential increase in science time of almost 50%.  So Commercial Crew is not also a potential money saver over time, but it allows the ISS to be better utilized.

...and must be quite a lot cheaper than designing new rockets?

Oh, I see, you think the Falcon 9 and the Atlas V are new rockets?  They were not built specifically for carrying ISS servicing spacecraft, but for general payloads - which can include human spacecraft.

The only new hardware being developed for the Commercial Crew program are the crew-carrying spacecraft.