Revolutionary Skylon Rocket/Jet hybrid engine gets OK from ESA-

[Ichingcarpenter]

After nearly thirty years on the drawing board, a revolutionary British spaceplane has received approval for the next stage of development.
The Skylon vehicle would be able to take off from a runway and reach orbit in a single stage.


It would be capable of delivering payloads of up to 15 tonnes into low Earth orbit - around 200 miles - at about 1/50th of the cost of traditional expendable launch vehicles, such as rockets, says the UK Space Agency.


And, finally, Skylon has received approval from a European Space Authority panel tasked with evaluating the design.
"No impediments or critical items have been identified for either the Skylon vehicle or the SABRE engine that are a block to further development," its report concludes.
http://www.tgdaily.com/space-features/56170-skylon-spaceplane-gets-esa-approval





Check out this video about Skylon Space Plane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bkjiGGy0gc

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. That's not Skylon, it's Fireflash!

http://www.technovelgy.com.nyud.net:8080/graphics/content08/Thunderbird-Fireflash.JPG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR4nKdMYKGc