Sexy spacecraft: Though it looks like something from Star Wars, the designers of the Skylon spaceplane claim they can get it off the ground within ten years with enough funding.
Credit: Reaction Engines
Working something like a car radiator, the precooler contains a fine network of cooling tubes that near instantly chills the searing hot gas to minus 130 ºC.
The small size and jet engine technology would mean that the Skylon doesn't suffer from many if the safety risks and noise pollution issues of conventional rockets, so it could even be launched in populated areas. "I would say that we could have a Skylon plane leaving [London's] Heathrow airport sometime during this century," said Bond.
Long way to go
As a further benefit, the spaceplane is relatively eco-friendly in that its main exhaust product is water, he added.
The spaceplane technology under development at Reaction Engines is "the most advanced in the world," said Duncan Law-Green a space and computer scientist at Leicester University in England, who is not involved in the project. What's more, the reusable nature of the plane means it can be tested extensively "until it's potentially as reliable as a car engine," he said.
Though he believes it has great prospects, Law-Green was quick to stress that the project is still at a fairly early stage "There are still many technological and engineering hurdles, and we are a long way from getting something that actually flies," he said.
Unfortunately as Reaction Engines estimate the total development cost of Skylon to be in the range of US$10 billion, the ESA funding is just a drop in the ocean of what will be required.
