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April 28, 2012 03:56 am EDT

Space travel coming to an airport near you? Maybe, if Skylon keeps its cool

reaction-engines-spaceplane-skylon-critical-cooling-tests

Want to get from New York to Perth in under 4 hours, or maybe just head to outer space on a lark? Reaction Engines' "Skylon" mach 5 spaceplane might be your chariot -- or not. Its scheme of ingesting oxygen from the atmosphere instead of stowing it like a 50-year old modern multi-stage rocket sounds good, but the project's fate may hang on critical new tests. Failure is still a possibility, but if the high-speed, superhot gases can be cooled enough for the hybrid Sabre engines to work, and if Reaction Engines Limited can secure another round of funding, punching your space-ticket could soon be a very real possibility.

Space travel coming to an airport near you? Maybe, if Skylon keeps its cool originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original Link: http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/27/reaction-engines-spaceplane-skylon-critical-cooling-tests/

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Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics. Engadget was launched in March of 2004 in partnership with the Weblogs, Inc. Network (WI

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