Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Lands in Florida After Record-Breaking Mission

After circling Earth for an unprecedented 718 days, the X-37B touched down Sunday May 7 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida — the first landing at the SLF since the final space shuttle mission came back to Earth in July 2011

The fourth mission, known as OTV-4, was launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and the first three landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But Air Force officials have said they want to consolidate X-37B launch and touchdown operations on Florida's Space Coast, so Sunday's landing might be the first of many at the SLF (Shuttle Landing Facility). 

Win a Free Ticket For a Ride Into Space...

Yep, you read correctly!  The folks behind the movie 'Interstellar' have teamed up with XCOR Aerospace for a contest that will give an extremely lucky person a free space trip.

How you may be asking? Well according to the Yahoo article:

• People who purchase their "Interstellar" tickets through the online site Fandango through Dec. 1 have a chance to win a free suborbital spaceflight aboard XCOR Aerospace's Lynx Mark II rocket plane. Seats aboard the vehicle normally sell for $100,000.

 For  more info  go HERE

X-37b Back From Space After 469 Days!

The Air Force's * cough* spy *cough * "space" plane made a trouble free landing at California's Vandenberg Airforce base after a record setting 469 days in orbit.

Overtly the Air Force was testing the robotic space plane for endurance. The Boing built craft as the Air Force describes it, as a research vehicle, going so far as to carry various experimental packages in it's payload area. One thing that seems to be clear is that the Air Force is unlikely to be developing let alone building any follow on craft to the X37c which was purported to have the capacity to carry personnel.

Check out the complete Dvice article here

Air Breathing Rocket: The Future of Space Travel?

Air breathing rockets? Don't you mean jet engines? Not quite, close but different. Ramjet or maybe a Scramjet. Closer But still not quite. The new engine blurs the boundaries of conventional jet engines and that of true rockets.

It's no mystery that it takes several thousand dollars a pound, just to boost it into orbit. The cost comes from the hordes of people that it takes to prepare the vehicle for launch. Plus the cost of boosting all the fuel it needs for the flight as well. Most of the weight penalty comes from the oxidizer which in truth is most of the weight of a launch.

The European Space Agency has awarded the UK firm Reaction Engines 1 million Euro to research the feasibility of a rocket engine that draws the oxidizer it needs from the atmosphere.

Up to this point, researchers have worked with two engine types, the ramjet and scramjet. The problem is that the ramjet is only good at speeds below mach 5, above mach 5 and the air is too hot for combustion. Above mach 5 and the scramjet can be used by mixing fuel with the ultra hot air. So you need 2 types of engines while in the atmosphere and another while in space. Very ineficient.

Reaction Engines wants to develop an engine which draws in air for the oxidizer to fuel a standard rocket engine. This way a space craft or plane could use just one engine. Drawing in air to burn all the way to space and then switching over to ab onboard supply of oxygen.

(pictured is Reaction Engines concept Skylon space plane)

NewScientist article