Space Solar Power – Recent Conceptual Progress

In article ,

NVALID says...



In article ,

Sylvia Else wrote:



On 21/06/2011 7:55 AM, Matt wrote:

Skylon, cool as it is, has shown nothing to indicate it has solved the

classic SSTO problem: when you get into building actual hardware and

the design gets toward CDR, the payload mass faction drops rapidly to

zero. There has to be some technological breakthrough to make this

succeed in SSTO while being affordable to build, and I don't see it.



The breakthrough is the SABRE engine.



Sylvia.



Has it gone past conceptualizing in any way at all?



They've started building and testing pieces in the lab, but that's about

it. It's going to be a multi-billion dollar research and development

program for sure.



Jeff

--

" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry

Spencer 1/28/2011