Space
Future of Hotol Spaceplane in Doubt
The UK Government has stopped further funding of the Hotol spaceplane project in a move which is expected to cause the eventual demise of the project.
British Aerospace had sought a very modest £Sm a year for the next three years in order to bring the project to the point where a full-scale international programme involving also Italy and West Germany could be initiated. It was expected that BAe would match government funding over the three year period, after which German and Italian funds would cover 50% of the full-scale programme costs. The move by the British Government was calculated to discourage BAe and Rolls-Royce from later seeking the £4-6bn required during the full-scale development programme.
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