[Space and stuff] Skylon successfully tests its engine

[grondilu]

http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/news_updates.html

« Reaction Engines Ltd. can announce today the biggest breakthrough in aerospace propulsion technology since the invention of the jet engine. Critical tests have been successfully completed on the key technology for SABRE, an engine which will enable aircraft to reach the opposite side of the world in under 4 hours, or to fly directly into orbit and return in a single stage, taking off and landing on a runway. »

For those who don't know what Skylon is, just watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daBKojdOAgs

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[grondilu]

The RE announcement has been relayed by Wired:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/11/reaction-engines-hypersonic/


Somehow, I feel like making a comparaison with bitcoin.

Both Bitcoin and the Skylon''s SABRE engine have something in common:  they have found a solution to a problem that has been known by specialists in the field for a long time.  I mean, they are both not a revolutionary concept, but rather a technological breakthrough.

For bitcoin, that was the double spending problem.  Before 2009, it was not difficult to imagine the idea of a P2P currency.  Just because we knew P2P networks existed and worked.  There was just this double spending thing that prevented the idea to become quite real.  Then Satoshi arrived.

With Skylon, it's about cooling air.   For some complex thermodynamic and aeronautics reasons, it was difficult to fly a plane other Mach three or four.  Nobody knew how to cool air fast enough.  Alan Bond and his team figured it out.  And this might have huge consequences.  Congratulations to them.

I really hope I'll see a Skylon fly in my life time.  How knows, maybe it will be possible to buy a ticket with bitcoins  

[Lethn]

YES! SPACESHIPS! FINALLY! Just need to solve the problem of getting it into deep space now.