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UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#31

Post by arethuza »

JonnieCache wrote: post #30
3327 wrote: post #11

The Brits are good engineers, and, compared to American juggernaut companies, specially in the defense and aerospace area, they manage to make innovation with very little. The US military spent millions all through the 1960's upto the late 1980's for a successful VTOL aircraft. Along came the brits with fractions of the budget with a great product the Harrier GR-1. There are some great arguments here, specially the s…

>If the government doesn't take the risk, long term innovation would be very difficult. What I'm wondering is, if the taxpayers have to take all the risk and spend all the R&D money out of our own pockets, why don't we get to keep all the profits as well? I thought innovation was the role of heroic figures who eat risk for breakfast? I thought the massive, economy-distorting pay packages were justified by all that ri…

The article says:

"the government's investment represents about 25% of the total"

Personally I am quite delighted to see my UK tax money going to back this project. Compared to the amounts we spend on much sillier projects it is a rounding error.

[e.g. My home city of Edinburgh is spending £1 billion on a rather short length of trams and the UK is spending ~£7 billion on two aircraft carriers when we can only afford to run one!]

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#32

Post by DuskStar »

maxerickson wrote: post #18
venomsnake wrote: post #17

I am a bit skeptical of any technology that uses helium. We just don't have viable ways to obtain reliably enough of the stuff reliably.

It doesn't look like it consumes it. So we could probably build hundreds or thousands of these things without much trouble.

As far as I can tell, the production version will use LH2 instead of Liquid Helium to cool the incoming air. (after which the Helium will be burned for thrust, no need to cool it back down)

It's a similar to how most rocket engine nozzles are cooled.

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#33

Post by JonnieCache »

arethuza wrote: post #31
JonnieCache wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the government doesn't take the risk, long term innovation would be very difficult. What I'm wondering is, if the taxpayers have to take all the risk and spend all the R&D money out of our own pockets, why don't we get to keep all the profits as well? I thought innovation was the role of heroic figures who eat risk for breakfast? I thought the massive, economy-distorting pay packages were justified by all that ri…

The article says: "the government's investment represents about 25% of the total" Personally I am quite delighted to see my UK tax money going to back this project. Compared to the amounts we spend on much sillier projects it is a rounding error. [e.g. My home city of Edinburgh is spending £1 billion on a rather short length of trams and the UK is spending ~£7 billion on two aircraft carriers when we can only afford…

In this case that seems pretty fair. Although if it's only 25% and it's such a great project I wonder could our bounteous financial sector not cover it?

Are the trams really still not finished? Blimey. My commiserations.

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#34

Post by venomsnake »

DuskStar wrote: post #32
maxerickson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't look like it consumes it. So we could probably build hundreds or thousands of these things without much trouble.

As far as I can tell, the production version will use LH2 instead of Liquid Helium to cool the incoming air. (after which the Helium will be burned for thrust, no need to cool it back down) It's a similar to how most rocket engine nozzles are cooled.

You mean Hydrogen will be burned? Noble gases have hard time reacting. Except xenon with fluoride and nitrogen but you want to be away when these bonds break.

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#35

Post by JonnieCache »

voicereason wrote: post #28
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #22

This made my day however: has passed an independent audit from European Space Agency experts, and Mr Osborne himself has inspected the test rig on the Culham science park in Oxfordshire. The ESA has verified the engine, but thank goodness, George Osbourne double checked it all, just in case those rocket scientists missed micro-fluctuations in heat transfer gradients. I mean they were probably all French anyway. Georg…

You clearly have something against Osborne. The UK government are investing the money. Osborne is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why is it strange that he would be mentioned in the article as having a look at it? He's only getting political flak from socialists and welfare claimants really - no surprise there.

And those well known socialists, the IMF: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/18/george-osborn...

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#36

Post by acd »

Sabre Air will eventually revolutionize internet communication so that it is possible to get internet access cheaply anywhere on earth.

Commstellation a Canadian company are planning 72 micro satellites that will provide backbone capacity for cellphone towers. Latency will be in the 40 ms range. http://www.commstellation.com/

Currently smartphones become dumb phones as soon as you leave your country on vacation, in the future we will be able to connect to internet anywhere cheaply.

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#37

Post by arethuza »

JonnieCache wrote: post #33
arethuza wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says: "the government's investment represents about 25% of the total" Personally I am quite delighted to see my UK tax money going to back this project. Compared to the amounts we spend on much sillier projects it is a rounding error. [e.g. My home city of Edinburgh is spending £1 billion on a rather short length of trams and the UK is spending ~£7 billion on two aircraft carriers when we can only afford…

In this case that seems pretty fair. Although if it's only 25% and it's such a great project I wonder could our bounteous financial sector not cover it? Are the trams really still not finished? Blimey. My commiserations.

"Are the trams really still not finished?"

About a year from them actually running properly for passengers :-|

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#38

Post by ris »

voicereason wrote: post #28
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #22

This made my day however: has passed an independent audit from European Space Agency experts, and Mr Osborne himself has inspected the test rig on the Culham science park in Oxfordshire. The ESA has verified the engine, but thank goodness, George Osbourne double checked it all, just in case those rocket scientists missed micro-fluctuations in heat transfer gradients. I mean they were probably all French anyway. Georg…

You clearly have something against Osborne. The UK government are investing the money. Osborne is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why is it strange that he would be mentioned in the article as having a look at it? He's only getting political flak from socialists and welfare claimants really - no surprise there.

1. Everyone's a socialist, so using it as a pejorative doesn't really work.

2. There aren't enough "welfare claimants" in this country to really have a big influence on anything themselves. The vast (vast) majority of people claiming benefits are hard working people who do 40 hour weeks but still don't earn enough to support their family, so they claim Working Tax Credits. This was Thatcher's doing, by the way.

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#39

Post by benl »

speeder wrote: post #13

Whoa, this is really awesome! For those that don't know, airbreathing engines are MUCH MORE efficient than conventional rocket engines. Not only in terms of weight saved from not having to lug around too much O2, but also because of the way it works inherently. I decided to make a space game once, with real world stuff on it, and settled for the Triton engine for my game spaceship, I did lots of research about rocket…

Are they really more efficient, for real world uses?

The way I understand it, the argument goes something like this. To reach orbit you need to accelerate to very high speeds (Mach 25). To avoid crazy drag losses you therefore want to get out of the atmosphere as quickly as possible. So being able to use oxygen from the air on your way up is a marginal gain at best, and almost certainly not worth the extra complexity.

Re: UK government invests in Sabre air-breathing rocket engine

#40

Post by ris »

lmm wrote: post #26
colinm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do you have one in green?"

What are you talking about? The only thing I can think of is British racing green, and that's a bit of a stretch.

I suspect it's a reference to Osbourne probably wanting to make a weapon out of it.
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