British engineers have developed the new £700 million “Skylon spaceplane”, which can travel at more than 5 times the speed of sound. Costing about £6.3 million per flight the 270 foot-long craft can carry up to 24 passengers into space. It could be available for commercial use within a decade. The unpiloted craft, which can take off from an Airport runway, has no external rockets and 2 engines that use hydrogen and oxygen to propel it more than 18 miles into space. Officials from the UK Space Agency believe it can revolutionize space travel and significantly cut its cost by taking advantage of newly developed technology. They say it could 1 day replace Nasa’s Space Shuttle to transport up to 12 tons of cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station. Reports have suggested that developing the craft will cost about £7.5 billion, the same amount it costs to develop an Airbus jet. The craft has been developed by the Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines with support from the new space agency. Officials will meet next week at a special two-day workshop next week, which will investigate how it can be developed commercially. Reaction Engines said it will take 10 years to develop, which if successful, would make Britain the 1st country in the world to launch a spaceplane in orbit.
No comments:
Post a Comment