Datahopa

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16090841 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16090841)

Could it be a reaality, probably not due to commercial factors but still an interesting read all the same  :D

This sort of thing comes round every few years. Never gonna happen in this financial market.

Look how much concord overran budget. This would be the same. Virtually impossible to judge costs due to unknowns. Nice dream though.

This is closer to reality though...
http://www.virgingalactic.com/ (http://www.virgingalactic.com/)

I guess time will tell, but worth keeping an eye on all the same.

Good to see Virgingalctic is a combined, and so far successful venture between the UK and the good old US of A.

Here is one of the most recent vids of the Virgingalctic spacecraft.

Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo undergoes first "Feather Flight". (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfvuK8Wj82Q#ws)

Weird. Never seen a craft do that before.

I assume this stops some of the friction involved on re-entry.

Cool that. I'm not sure quite how that works, I assume it over comes the sheer velocity on re entry ?.  :scratch-head:

Found this discription of Spaceshipone on the encyclopedia astronautica:

The unique configuration allowed aircraft-like qualities for boost, glide, and landing. Rutan wanted to avoid the use of fly-by-wire stability augmentation systems normally required to handle the instability inherent in transonic aircraft. He originally planned to use petal-like drag brakes, to be followed by a vertical parachute recovery. But finally he decided to use pneumatic actuators to pop-up the wing and tail boom in a 'shuttlecock' configuration. This provided for a stable high-drag re-entry, which required no control inputs from the pilot. After the aircraft had slowed to 160 kph, the wings and tail would return to their normal position, and the pilot would fly the aircraft in a 185 kph glide in descending circles to the airfield.

Pretty darned clever really  8)