Another milestone in rocketry was achieved on Monday. For the first time in history, a pure rocket-powered aircraft performed a touch-and-go landing. This maneuver, which involves landing on a runway, and then taking off again before speed is slowed too much, is one that every student pilot practices, multiple times, because it builds skill in both takeoff and landing. But until this week, it had always been performed with an airbreathing engine.

XCOR Aerospace has now demonstrated that it's possible to do it with rocket power, which required the ability to routinely and reliably cut power for the landing, and then restart the engines for the takeoff.

This implies that if they are not available now, engines will be available very soon that will allow affordable rocket races, trips to suborbit, and (eventually) rides into orbit itself on a routine basis, that could provide the foundation for a whole new transportation industry.

Just goes to show you that even in aerospace you can do substantive R&D with a lean, mean budget / organization. The mammals will get the better of the dinosaurs yet! Good job XCOR, keep it up!

Rocket races....

Several years ago, Heath Kits died. The smog
laws killed hot-rodding. And so on.

The replacement was web pages. I like computers
more than the next guy, but ....

Rocket races....

-andy

I second that good job! although I have some reservations. The test shows the reliability of engine restart and perhaps other things. Yet it would seem that a viable aircraft concept to orbit would include airbreathing engines (perhaps with oxygen refueling before the final push to space.) These are presumptions of course, but if you let me have a gimme here, my question is...

Would a rocket touch and go have any relevance if that were the case?

I hate being such a wet blanket because I think the technology is cool and definitely worth the effort from a research point of view. I also think it may be a good thing that XCOR doesn't yet have the financing for some white elephant because it does encourage original research (which I believe is always a good thing.)

OTOH, I'm eager to see results from the vision. It's almost unbelievable to me that we could go from the X programs of the 1960's to the pitiful state that we are today.

Space transports may employ airbreathing engines, but there's no reason to think that they must.

Visions of Heinleiny rocket-transport goodness are dancing in my head.

I agree Rand, but if we throw away the benefit of all that free oxidizer why not get rid of the wings too? If getting into space cheap is the question, better ground facilities would seem to be the answer... rail launch, laser push or anything that gets your real space vehicle to the point where it can get itself into orbit.

Perhaps the big dumb booster isn't such a bad idea after all, if we just made it cheaper?

It seems space requires two types of engines... short duration high thrust and long duration low thrust (only because the latter seem to be more efficient both in time and energy although I don't know why that has to be so.)

Frankly, I think it's too bad we can't (or don't) use nuclear power.

Oxidizer from airbreathers isn't "free." It has a tremendous drag penalty. When going into space, you're a lot better off getting out of the atmosphere as quickly as possible, for a lot of reasons. Air breathing militates against this.