EADS Astrium, the European conglomerate that builds the Ariane rockets has come up with a concept vehicle for suborbital flights
Hybrid jet and rocket plane about the size of a business jet. Capable of suborbital hops, allegedly, like the Rutan's Space Ship One
Nominal market is high end tourism at about 1/4 million $ per pop. 4 passengers for 3 minutes of free fall. Astrium unveiled a mock up of the forward section at the Paris airshow.
Sounds like it is currently a power point project, they're looking for investors to build - ie they won't risk the company's capital or credit.
I'd have thought there were other applications...
The worrying thing about the space plane lines is that there is not a clear development path to orbital capability. Several niche markets for efficient sub-orbital planes, but it is not the same as orbit.
Still better than nothing.
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Hey, maybe this will get the old Hawker Siddeley Dynamics plant in Stevenage working again - just across the road from EADS Astrium (ex Matra-BAE Astrium, ex-BAe Space Division, ex-Hawker Siddeley, ex-Saunders Roe).
I wonder if any of the Bristol Spaceplanes lot are working on this? It's just a great big slab of British tech nostalgia..
When they move to the Jet A1/H2O2 rockets, then you'll know they're serious. A bit more dV and it's off to the stars!
Arguably the Space Shuttle is an orbital space plane; the main difference from what you're thinking of is its need for a rocket boost into orbit rather than a horizontal takeoff. Clearly progress on the engine side of things is occurring, but what about re-entry? Are there less fragile options for reusable heat shielding, or would any orbital space plane have a lot of down time for shielding maintenance after each flight (not to mention risk, if, say, it hit a bird shortly after takeoff and didn't abort the flight)?
No the shuttle isn't a space plane to me because it never uses its wings to help under powered flight. Suborbital is just a ton easier with less power and thermal requirements. I'm hoping one of these suborbital tourist things leads to resusable boosters. There have been semi-realistic designs for a quarter century now, I hope it finally starts getting to the build point.
To me it sure looks like there could be order of magnitude reduction in operating expenses for orbital vehicles with the right design, but the "activation cost" is just too high. it would be perfect for government subsidy or development but I guess the incentives for current agencies is against that.
At least it could be improved, perhaps much so. On the specs and sparse reports, the Buran shielding was probably better than the Shuttle's on heat and tile loss.