Alan Bond: The British engineer says he will revolutionise space travel – and he's building the rocket to do it

Some time in the middle of the next decade a revolutionary new engine will propel a reusable space plane called Skylon towards the heavens, hopefully changing the way we escape our atmosphere for ever.

The Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (Sabre) isn't a product of Nasa or a super-wealthy space entrepreneur. It's the brainchild of a quiet, British engineer called Alan Bond. And, from its base in a science park near Oxford, his company Reaction Engines is getting closer to perfecting its design. Bond has spent his working life trying to solve a problem that most people haven't even considered; space crafts powered by traditional rockets are far too expensive and unreliable, and will never provide humankind with the tools to explore our solar system and beyond.

"On the face of it space rockets are an extremely good and established way of getting craft into space," he says, "but they are incredibly expensive, so much so that a typical commercial launch will cost somewhere in the region of £100m, which is equivalent of buying a Boeing 747 before using it just once and sending it to the crusher."


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/alan-bond-the-british-engineer-says-he-will-revolutionise-space-travel--and-hes-building-the-rocket-to-do-it-9587165.html

It's a fascinating project that the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency have reported is perfectly feasable and backed it with additional funding.

At 70 years old I just hope that Alan Bond lives long enough to see his dream come true and see's the reward for almost a lifetime's work on the project.

A brilliant man.

I agree, it would be sad if it wasn't completed in his life time, the work he has done is amazing.