Human Spaceflight Progress Around the World: Part 5

This is probably the last post in this series. I kept hitting the max post length and wanted to cover Reaction Engines as well as give a commentary. I'd also like to make a quick commentary. First up, the last of the private human spaceflight efforts of note.

Reaction Engines

If ever there was a group of true believers who would just not give up, it would be the folks behind Reaction Engines. These guys are working on an engine for a trans atmospheric vehicle, in the old parlance, or a horizontal takeoff and landing single stage to orbit. That's right: these folks are pursuing what many have and abandoned. Several times. Even cyclically. Yet, RE keeps going. How long have they been going? Since the 1980s. Yup, around 30 years.

RE has its roots in the efforts around the world to build transatmospheric vehicles in the 1980s. The beautiful vision was to have a plane takeoff and fly to orbit. The world pretty much went all in on the concept and tried different directions. The Americans went with the National Aerospace Planeand used scramjets. That was cancelled. The Germans went forward with their Sanger concept, but it was a two stage to orbit (TSTO) rather than SSTO. That, too, was cancelled. The Japanese went forward with their own design that used LACE, liquid air combustion engines: these liquified the air into becoming a cryogenic fluid as the aircraft flew and then burned the air with fuel in rocket engines (much simplified over reality, but that's the basic concept). The Russians even triggered the development of the Tu-2000 in 1986 as a response to the craze to make sure they kept up. The Brits went with their HOTOL which, like the Japanese, also used a LACE engine. The HOTOL was cancelled.

With two exceptions, the world shut down their hypersonic developments until recently: the US kept plugging away at hypersonic tech primarily for military use and the Brits. Some of the people involved with the HOTOL refused to give up and they founded Reaction Engines.

With the last 30 years, with modest funding, the Brits had been working away at getting the engine working. They focused on one of the most problematic aspects: the precooler for the engine to turn the air into a liquid. Within the last few years, they have made significant progress. Enough so that ESA did a study based on the progress that RE had made and foresaw no major problems. However, the funding they received was more like a high end research project than a ramping up developmental project: 80 million Pounds (~$106M).

RE may be going the route of British Aerospace, too, and to call it strictly British might be a misnomer: they have opened a facility in Colorado and are now receiving US government funding (AFRL and DARPA money) for developing and testing their cooler designs.

The ultimate goal is to design and build the Skylon, RE's updated version of the HOTOL. It should be noted, the funding to get this done was, in 2004, almost $12 billion. RE has NOT come close to securing this money: they haven't even scratched the 10% mark. Likewise, the cooler designs are only being tested up to Mach 5 with the DARPA contract: they need to be tested to much, much higher speeds and temperatures (and the problems worked out) before an engine can be built. Likewise, even if they have the cooler working, that's only part of the entire engine. Finally, the Skylon concept requires breakthroughs in material science for the mass fraction to work out for Skylon to make it to orbit.

If Reaction Engines continues on the route they have been with the rate of progress to date, they have another 30 years to go. OTOH, given they have caught the attention of the US gov's wild wild tech branches, they may accelerate that time frame. OTGH, there are two loose cannons that might either muck that potentiality up or greatly accelerate it: BREXIT and the possible formation of the US Space Force. Either of those could either nuke or greatly accelerate RE.

With that, that's the end of the private space programs. There are more, but most are either too small to go be given attention or are unlikely to make a lot of progress.

Commentary

There's a lot going on in the space world, Right now, it's looking more and more like the world has set aside the fast dash to X and started putting into place the infrastructure to get into deep space and back onto the Moon. waystations, heavy lift rockets and more, oh my. However, all of this can be swept away in a major economic shift, a failure to anticipate future tech changes, political shifts or just becoming plain unwilling to fund the necessary work. No bucks: no Buck Rogers.

While we might fret here in the US, the ones that seem to be in the biggest financial trouble are the Russians. They take in hundreds of millions of dollars ferrying astronauts from around the world to the international space station. Starting next year, that will no longer be necessary. Energomash, one of the primary builders of Russian rocket engines, built 19 engines in 2018: 17 of those were for the Americans. Purchases of those engines are banned starting in 2022 and, given the long lead for building those engines, Energomash will have major impacts starting in 2020...2 years from now. Unless there is a massive cash infusion from the Russian gov or other Russian customers, things look bleak at the company. This is at a time when the Russian government is under significant sanctions and is spread too thin based on the price of oil and its commitments: the Su-57, PAK-DA, pensions, T-14 (plus other) tanks, nuclear weapons, infrastructure, etc. are all just as important, if not more so, and yet are being postponed significantly, including increasing the age of retirement for the pensions. Russian pride may not let that happen. However, unless there is a significant sea change in the Russian finances for their space program (and their gov in general), it's entirely possible by 2030 Russia will no longer be a space faring nation, at least in terms of an independent human spaceflight capability.

The players in the mid 21st century may be rather different than today. No Russia? Red Planet landings by the Indians and Chinese? Even the Arabs are starting to found space agencies: UAE in particular. The future will be weird. And the laws of physics don't care what the color of your flag is, they work the same for everyone. Who is willing to put up the cash to work with them.

Thanks and keep up the effort!

I have a lot of reading to do on these reaction engines...

a reply to: lordcomac

It's interesting. It has a loooooong way to go, but has potential. That they have kept at it is almost astounding, almost a matter of faith.

Thank you for this awesome, well written series! glad you kept going with it

a reply to: Lr103

Thank you. It seems people became less interested over time though. Good to know.