Ace Dreamer Wrote:If they wanted to go with a waved airframe and a couple of waved-up test engines, I think they could have a demonstrator flying sometime in 2009, if not earlier. British space fandom would queue-up to help them.If they want something waved, there is no reason to build something as complicated as SKYLON. You can just wave a 40 tons truck.
Quote:I could see the British government unofficially asking Brains to help them, late Summer 2008. If they were happy with him waving-up an airframe from plywood and mylar, with glued-on ceramic heat tiles, I doubt it would take him more than a month.I think we have established that the Earth nations do NOT embrace waved spaceflight this early... otherwise there wont be much space left for Fenspace.
Quote:Meanwhile, they could be ordering the real hard-tech airframe from aircraft manufacturers, and handwaving-up the missing tech in their helium-pre-cooler. Then reverse-engineering that.I think you are making this "reverse engineer Handwavium stuff" much too easy.
Quote:Fuel, load, start proof-of-concept flights. I think you could pry-loose money from the UK government and the EU by taking a few official parties into orbit...(I think the design says up to thirty astronauts.) Pretty sure you could sell them on 4.6hr flights from Brussels to Sidney, Australia, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_A2Yes, but please lets move this closer to Season 2 than Season 0... I think there is a reason why the current consensus of the early history of Earth is that the large nations do not use Handwavium that quickly.