2 HN users recommended this documentary2 months2012–2015score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Linked in Reaction Engines threads as the story behind the engine, though one commenter is skeptical of the company's funding record.
A BBC Four documentary following Alan Bond and Reaction Engines as they pursue the Skylon spaceplane and its SABRE engine. It covers the history from HOTOL and the heat-exchanger breakthrough.
“Here's a documentary that was broadcast on BBC4 a couple of months ago about Bond and his quixotic journey to get HOTOL/Skylon into the sky” (HN, 2012)
Here's a documentary that was broadcast on BBC4 a couple of months ago about Bond and his quixotic journey to get HOTOL/Skylon into the sky: [this video] It includes a test-firing of the new heat-exchanger at the end.
BBC documentary on Bond's quest for HOTOL/Skylon with a heat-exchanger test.
I think this will be the single biggest revolution since aviation history. It would change the way we travel, send things up to space. Of course, military consequences will be interesting as well. I wonder if US military already has something like this in the works. I'd hate it to see it fall into the wrong type of people. Very inspiring stuff. [this video]
According to this BBC Four documentary (found in another comment) [this video] the engineers wanted to apply for a patent once the British government stopped funding their work, but the government classified their work as secret, preventing them from doing so. EDITED TO ADD: Apparently the original secret classification expired in 1993, at which point they filed a patent which ended up being owned by Rolls Royce. Their current work circumvents that patent.
Cited for the story of classified work blocking the engineers' patent.
This project is a bit like the British 'Bloodhound' land speed record attempt in that there is a bit of 'Duke Nukem' about it, i.e. it is never going to happen! Very 'British' though, with the usual cause for failure, e.g. short term return on investment demands of the city, the uselessness of the government for backing 'British genius' and so on. Anyone not sceptical is advised to watch the BBC documentary 'The Three Rocketeers': [this video] These guys have been begging for funding and making the same 'design studies' for decades, the fact that British Aerospace 'BAE SYSTEMS' have disowned the project is quite telling, it is not anywhere near being tangible and it never will be. The only lesson to be learned here is how not to run your start up!!!
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
5 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes
Read more