Hatching revolutionary and evolutionary technologies

A look at several of the research incubators that could alter the future of civil aerospace engineering and manufacturing programs.

Largely because of the massive cost of R&D, combined with high business risk and an uncertain market, commercialized supersonic air travel seems quite out of reach, except perhaps for limited application in a supersonic business jet. Does that mean that the quest is essentially over for a truly breakthrough powerplant technology that could once again offer the prospect of drastically reduced global travel times, such as those the Concorde offered?

One British aerospace engineer in particular, Alan Bond, firmly believes that the quest may be closer than many people realize. Bond, with colleagues Richard Varvill and John Scott-Scott, led the development effort on Rolls-Royce's RB545, a revolutionary hybrid engine that was to have powered the BAE Systems HOTOL spaceplane that was canceled in the late 1980s.