Soldato
Out of the hold, T-4 and counting 
** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **
- Thread starter Cosimo
- Start date
Go Go Go
The ascent timeline:
Soldato
Doesn't hang around, does it? Just goes to show that doing anything in space is all about weight. Instead of thinking 'how can we make rockets powerful enough to launch this', you have to think 'how can we make this small enough to launch on a rocket'?
Soldato
That would probably be a Soyuz (booster) launch, there will be a couple of unmanned tests on commercial satellite launches to make sure the problem has been resolved before a manned mission, launching Expedition 29 to the ISS.
Soldato
Damn that thing went up quickly. Seriously impressive acceleration!
Soldato
For anyone that missed it
GRAIL A has been deployed.
Six minutes left for GRAIL B.
GRAIL B has been deployed:
We are on the way.
We are on the way.
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Soldato
StriderX: list of next mission launches here, from 2011 until 2013.
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_Skylon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_SABRE
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_A2
I'd love for this to come into fruition, hopefully reasonably soon, both for the space side of things and the potential for another Concordesque aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_SABRE
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_A2
I'd love for this to come into fruition, hopefully reasonably soon, both for the space side of things and the potential for another Concordesque aircraft.
Soldato
Doubt it, they don't have anywhere near the funding they need to start the project 'for real', there's no sign of them being able to get such funding any time in the near future and even if they did it would be at least 12-15 years of R&D before they had anything at all to show for it.
Unfortunately i don't think we'll ever see anything real come from Reaction Engines, but i have to commend the people who founded them for carrying on their dream when they got shafted by the government when it was under the name 'HOTOL'. If they hadn't been then we may well have been seeing launches by now.
Full launch video up to second stage engine cut-off 1 (animation) putting the rocket with GRAIL into earth orbit:
The solar arrays have deployed and communication has been established with the Deep Space Network tracking station in Goldstone, California.
The three and a half month journey to the moon begins.
The solar arrays have deployed and communication has been established with the Deep Space Network tracking station in Goldstone, California.
The three and a half month journey to the moon begins.
Well they have already been offered half a billion so it's not that far fetched. Once the engine is perfected then the major hurdle is over IMO.
I think the problem is it's one of the few really far sighted projects on the go at the moment. All we see now is multi stage rockets and small devices that will neve be able to lift anything particularly heavy (such as the Virgin "space"craft). A more airline style device is something we need for real future space development and exploration. The Shuttle was a push in the right direction but still needed several rockets to get it on its way and had such a large turnaround time.
The REA2 would make trade cheaper surely? (the time taken is considerably less, hell if the times are correct, you could get around 5 trips of cargo for the 1 trip the usual jet would.)
Unless the costs of keeping LH and LOX liquid are negating that?
Unless the costs of keeping LH and LOX liquid are negating that?
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