SKYLON

“The British Black-Glass Zeppelin

That Will Ride Columns of Steam to Outer Space

In An Inventive New Fashion!”**

“Britain's Bad-Ass Rocketplane And Possible Shuttle Successor”*

“The denser lower atmosphere provides nothing but drag to a conventional rocket - but SKYLON uses it for aerodynamic lift, oxidizer and reaction mass. Then when the air is too thin to provide lift SKYLON goes upwards like any other rocket using onboard oxygen. A good example of designing your way round a problem rather than throwing money at more and more horsepower!”***

“A black, future-tech spaceplane that absolutely looks the part….

.. a completely different and un-rocket-ish solution from the British boffins”*

“I fully expect the passenger module for SKYLON to have wood panelling, velvet-upholstered seats, and brass dials and gauges. Also, a rack to put your top hat in microgravity.”**

“The SKYLON design promises to take off from a specially strengthened runway, fly into space, reenter the atmosphere, and land back on the runway like a conventional aeroplane, without staging... SKYLON uses a relatively conventional-looking retractable undercarriage.”*****

“Single stage to orbit (SSTO) – as God and Robert Heinlein intended****

“… a workhorse of space, a vehicle that introduces the public to cheap spaceflight, just as the DC3 once made the world familiar with cheap and easy air travel.”******

“Wicked-cool craft...

.. may ultimately turn into the most sci-fi-looking spaceship we've ever flown.”*

“What more exciting is that this single project could take the UK from being a nation with zero native launch capacity, to having the cheapest and most advanced on the planet, allowing the UK to make a quantum leap in space exploration and leaving other nations like the US and Russia that has thrown hundreds of billions into space exploration playing catchup to the UK.”*******

SKYLON MISSION