Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!bob
From: bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (Bob Gray)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: alternate launch vehicles
Message-ID: <871@etive.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 21 Oct 88 13:28:33 GMT
References: <3433@geac.UUCP> <372@istop.ist.CO.UK>
Reply-To: bob@etive.ed.ac.uk (Bob Gray)
Organization: Edinburgh Concurrent Supercomputer Project
Lines: 34

In article <372@istop.ist.CO.UK> kev@ist.CO.UK (News reading a/c for kevin) writes:
>It appears as though British Aerospace's (BAe) Hotol project has been 
>swept under the carpet again. BAe want to proceed but are not prepared to
>unless the cost can be shared with someone else. HMG is not prepared to 
>spend anything on it (or anything else if they can help it), but will 
>permit BAe to look for other investors, as long as they are not foreign
>to the UK - for reasons of NATIONAL SECURITY. ....

Not quite. HMG has mentioned that the Japanese would be a
good choice of partners. The paranoia that HMG has about National
Security will quickly disappear if a big enough profit can
be made out of it. Especially if some other country will pay
for it.

>venture. The designer (whether of the engines alone or the project in 
>general, I'm uncertain) apparently is the modern day equivalent of 
>Barnes Wallace and Frank Whittle, and has publicly stated that his baby
>WILL be built, and that as HE holds the copyrights he would 'defect' to 
>the highest bidder should the project be stopped. HMG informed him that 
>this would break the Official Secrets Act...        etc.,etc.

Alan Bond. He designed the engines and demonstrated that his
designs WILL work if built. He claims to have raised 120
million pounds to finance the second stage of development
work. He also said that the OSA wouldn't stop him going
abroad to continue development if he could'nt in this country.

One footnote. The Indian Government's Ministry of defence is
said to be interested in the engines. They have produced an
idea which would nearly triple the proportion of cargo to
take off weight. They want to take off with empty O2 tanks,
and cruise in the upper atmosphere (25 miles up) at Mach 6
and liquefy and store O2 for later use outside the atmosphere.
	Bob.