urmomaisjabbathehutt t1_j8r0kyt wrote on February 16, 2023 at 9:31 AM

Reply to comment by LcuBeatsWorking in After a decade in development, Japan’s H3 rocket is ready for its debut by DoremusJessup

pity people like reaction engines doesnt get more money

LcuBeatsWorking t1_j8r0w9h wrote on February 16, 2023 at 9:35 AM

Why should they? They haven't presented a working prototype of their engines in 30 years, and there are a lot of questions about that design.

And even what they propose to do with it (Skylon) isn't really a good idea.

holyrooster_ t1_j8r8ekv wrote on February 16, 2023 at 11:19 AM

Disagree. Money can be invested much better. Their technology isn't that great and their vehicle is mostly fantasy. It would take absurd amount of money and likely they couldn't make it work at all.

For that same price you could build way more useful things for space flight.

urmomaisjabbathehutt t1_j8rc8g5 wrote on February 16, 2023 at 12:04 PM

we could take the same view with other technologies like fusion in the enegy industry or advanced designg nuclear rocket engines and still get us nowhere but perfecting 1950s technologies

imho those people had been testing their technology for years but the company size and available cash is nowhere to be able to proceed with the desirable development speed

further ahead there are people working on other types of hypersonic engines

and in the future even plasma jet enginess (fairly early stage and with many issues to solve such as the amount of energy...) fairly stage but imho worth exploring since a breakthrough on such could change not only space industry but the entire aerospace industry

holyrooster_ t1_j99ucyo wrote on February 20, 2023 at 10:21 AM

> we could take the same view with other technologies like

Yes. We should look at fundamental physics when making investments.

Fusion is mostly dumb for almost all application. Most nuclear rocket engine designs are pointless and not really worth it as well.

> imho those people had been testing their technology for years but the company size and available cash is nowhere to be able to proceed with the desirable development speed

If you are proposing a design with limited upside but at least 100 the cost of a conventional design then of course you can't do that.

The reality is the Skylon project was barley more then 1950 sci-fi, to go 'full speed on development' would have cost most of the European space budget. And all for a concept that serious technical issues, a team with insufficient knowledge and experience and limited upside.