Skylon is an unpiloted, reuseable spaceplane designed in the U.K. intended to provide inexpensive and reliable access to space. Currently in proof-of-concept phase, the vehicle will take approximately 10 years to develop and will be capable of transporting 12 tonnes of cargo into space.
Designers say the Skylon, that actually looks like a SR71 Blackbird spyplane, will be able to repay its development costs, meet its servicing and operating costs, while making profits for its operators as it is an order of magnitude cheaper to customers than current space transportation systems like NASA’s bloated, decrepit, and out of date Space Shuttle.
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Looks cool, but so did the Space Shuttle when it came out. Ten year development funding and the production costs. I wonder what multiple of those will be in actual cost over-runs? Still I like the idea of a Space-plane.
It’s private sector not NASA, yes?