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They don’t want you to see this video [WSW Logo]( [Divider] A note from the Editor: Wall Street Wizardry is dedicated to providing readers like you with unique opportunities. The message below from one of our business associates is one we believe you should take a serious look at. [divider] In what promises to be one of the most unusual Academy Awards ceremonies for a long time, there are bound to be a few shocks. Despite that, Nicholas Barber and Caryn James give their predictions for the big categories – and a couple of invented ones. Nomadland (Credit: Searchlight Pictures/20th Century Studios) Nomadland (Credit: Searchlight Pictures/20th Century Studios) Best picture Nicholas Barber: Chloé Zhao's Nomadland is a small, personal, year-in-the-life narrative, but it's also an epic road movie that boasts breath-taking desert scenery, and a state-of-the-nation treatise on growing old in the US today. What more could you, or the Academy, ask for? Most of the nominees are in with a chance, but it's easy to see why Nomadland has been the frontrunner ever since it won the Golden Lion at last year's Venice Film Festival. Caryn James: Nomadland has been the frontrunner all season, and will win. All it has going against it at this point is inevitability. If voters want to shake things up, they could surprise us with Minari, the eloquent story of a Korean family, which should win, edging out the fiery political drama Judas and the Black Messiah in a terrific year. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Credit: Escape Artists) Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Credit: Escape Artists) Best actor CJ: Chadwick Boseman will win, as he should, and it will be more than a tribute to the actor who died in 2020. His aching performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, as a musician in 1927 with a tortured past, ranges from buoyant to deeply pained. NB: Ideally, the Oscar would have gone to Delroy Lindo for Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods. But as he wasn't nominated, it would be lovely to see Anthony Hopkins [nominated for his performance in The Father] win another Academy Award at the age of 83. Boseman deserves an Oscar for his livewire portrayal of an angry, ambitious jazz trumpeter in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom – and the Academy will want to honour the life of an inspirational actor who died of cancer last year. Promising Young Woman (Credit: Focus Features) Promising Young Woman (Credit: Focus Features) Best actress NB: Vanessa Kirby deserves to win – the long, one-take home-birth scene near the start of Pieces of a Woman must be the most painfully accurate depiction of labour ever seen in a film, and every one of Kirby's moans and cries is authentic. A tour de force. But Carey Mulligan is likely to take the award. Some people (me included) may not have been convinced by Promising Young Woman, but even the doubters have applauded Mulligan's flashy central performance. CJ: This may be the year's hardest category to predict. Frances McDormand is likely to win for her realistically detailed portrayal of a woman on the road in Nomadland. But Carey Mulligan has a chance and should win for her brash, sympathetic performance as the vengeful Cassie in Promising Young Woman. Judas and the Black Messiah (Credit: Bron Studios) Judas and the Black Messiah (Credit: Bron Studios) Best supporting actor CJ: Daniel Kaluuya will and should win as the passionate Black Panther leader in Judas and the Black Messiah. Let's be honest: he is the film's lead, but Oscars play so fast and loose with categories that there's a term for it: category fraud. Kaluuya deserves the Oscar anyway. NB: This category makes no sense. If Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield are both supporting actors in Judas and the Black Messiah, then who exactly is the lead? Still, if Kaluuya is recognised for the searing charisma he brings to Chairman Fred Hampton of the Illinois Black Panthers, I won't complain. Kaluuya's presence is so commanding that he might as well be fixing you in his laser-beam glare and daring you not to vote for him. Yuh-Jung Youn in Minari (Credit: A24) Yuh-Jung Youn in Minari (Credit: A24) Best supporting actress NB: Maria Bakalova, a Bulgarian newcomer, proved that she could be as quick-witted and daring as Sacha Baron Cohen, despite having far less experience. The Borat sequel might not match its predecessor, but Bakalova's hotel scene with Rudy Giuliani will never be forgotten. Yet it's likely that Amanda Seyfried will win. Playing William Randolph Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies, Seyfried is the heart of David Fincher's Mank. I doubt that the film will turn many of its 10 nominations into wins, but the highly-praised Seyfried is its brightest hope. CJ: Yuh-Jung Youn, who has already won a SAG award and a Bafta as the blunt yet warm grandma in Minari, will win the Oscar, and should. Bonus: Her acceptance speeches are as lively as her character's no-holds-barred remarks. Chloé Zhao (Credit: Getty Images) Chloé Zhao (Credit: Getty Images) Best director CJ: With her singular voice, Chloé Zhao brought imagination, skill and heart to Nomadland. She should win and will, after having swept every other major directing award this season. NB: It's a strong category, but Zhao is the only director who is truly unique, bringing together fact and fiction, non-professional actors and Oscar-winning veterans, in ways that no one else has managed before. Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman ever to have won the best director Oscar. This year, Zhao should be the second. Soul (Credit: Pixar) Soul (Credit: Pixar) Best original score NB: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score for Mank should win; while paying tribute to the ominous music Bernard Herrmann wrote for Citizen Kane, as well as the nightclub dance-band tunes of the 1930s and 1940s, it's wondrous in its own right. Who could resist the snappy number which uses typewriter keys as percussion? Although Soul will probably win, having already garnered a Golden Globe for its score. Considering that it has Jon Batiste's jaunty jazz in the New York scenes, plus spine-tingling ambient sounds by – yes – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the scenes set in another dimension, it'll be tough to beat. CJ: How can Soul not win when its jazzy score is the heart of a movie about a musician? It may not be a fair fight, but Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste, actually deserve the Oscar coming their way. Nomadland (Credit: Searchlight Pictures/20th Century Studios) Nomadland (Credit: Searchlight Pictures/20th Century Studios) Best adapted screenplay CJ: In The Father, Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton turned Zeller's play about a man battling dementia into an affecting, structurally fragmented yet graceful film that lucidly takes us into his confused mind. It will and should win, but we can't rule out Nomadland. Zhao brought drama and a distinctive voice to her fictional twist on a non-fiction book. NB: Yes, Nomadland should – and will – win again, because turning Jessica Bruder's non-fiction book into a documentary-like drama was a tremendous feat. Three of the other shortlisted screenplays (The Father, One Night in Miami..., The White Tiger) are too close to their source material to win, and one of them (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) is too reliant on improvisation. Nomadland it is. Promising Young Woman (Credit: Focus Features) Promising Young Woman (Credit: Focus Features) Best original screenplay NB: A vibrant account of a Korean-American family's life in rural Arkansas, Minari should win: it covers a range of characters, settings and moods, and never puts a foot wrong. But Promising Young Woman will win. Emerald Fennell's sub-Tarantino screenplay has enough show-offy dialogue and political tub-thumping to feel like a clever script, even if it isn't. CJ: The Trial of the Chicago 7 has six nominations, but the only Oscar it is likely to win is for screenplay. Oscar voters seem to love Aaron Sorkin and this will be his reward. Too bad, because Emerald Fennell should win for her audacious, thoroughly accomplished Promising Young Woman, the year's freshest screenplay. Wolfwalkers (Credit: Cartoon Saloon) Wolfwalkers (Credit: Cartoon Saloon) Best animated feature CJ: Soul, a warm and engaging film about embracing life, has Disney and Pixar behind it, and will win. In another year that might have been fine. But this year's Oscar should go to the more innovative Wolfwalkers. With gloriously colourful visuals as delicate as stained glass, it breathes a contemporary feel into a young heroine in 17th-Century Ireland. NB: Wolfwalkers deserves to win: every stylised, hand-drawn frame of this Irish fairy-tale adventure is a work of art. Put them together and you've got one of last year's most delightful films, animated or otherwise. Wolfwalkers might just clinch it, but the Academy loves Pixar, and the studio's metaphysical mind-bender is one of its most impressive cartoons. Collective (Credit: Magnolia Pictures) Collective (Credit: Magnolia Pictures) Best documentary feature CJ: Garrett Bradley's Time will win, as it offers some major Oscar bait. It is in artful black-and-white and has a timely, socially relevant theme about US prisons. The winner should be another newsworthy documentary, the jolting Romanian film Collective, about reporters who uncover a health care fraud in the wake of a tragic fire. NB: Collective should win – we've all seen Hollywood conspiracy thrillers about campaigning journalists exposing horrific government corruption. This Romanian documentary is as tense and shocking as any of them – and it's all true. Yet Time is the likely winner. A warm, poetic portrait of an indefatigable woman who keeps her life and her family together while her husband is in prison, it could hardly be more topical or important in 2021. Another Round (Credit: Alamy) Another Round (Credit: Alamy) Best international feature NB: This category has so many great films, in so many wildly different genres, that it seems silly to compare them. But Another Round is my favourite. Thomas Vinterberg's tragicomedy is already an award-winner around the world, so voters clearly relate to the story of an alcohol-soaked midlife crisis. Don't be surprised, either, if there's a Hollywood remake in a year or two. CJ: If there's one sure thing this year, it's Another Round's win for best international film. Thomas Vinterberg's film will win because its drinking theme is relatable and its star, Mads Mikkelsen, is familiar. It should win for its deeply honest, lively portrait of men coping with middle age any way they can. Host (Credit: Pearl Pictures Productions) Host (Credit: Pearl Pictures Productions) Best pandemic-themed film (intentionally or not) CJ: Made before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Little Fish is an unlikely romance with Olivia Cooke and Jack O'Connell as young lovers facing a world where a wide-spreading disease starts erasing people's memories. The scenario eerily mirrors our pandemic fears, but this dazzling small film is above all a story about love conquering any viral blight. NB: The whole of Rob Savage's inventive micro-budget horror movie Host consists of a Zoom call which plays out in real time, so its sharp observations of lockdown life will be all too recognisable to most of us – even if, unlike the six main characters, we haven't made the mistake of summoning an evil supernatural entity. Da 5 Bloods (Credit: Netflix) Da 5 Bloods (Credit: Netflix) The Power of the Dog is the favourite for several awards – but there are bound to be a few surprises. Nicholas Barber and Caryn James give their predictions for the big categories. The Power of the Dog (Credit: Netflix) The Power of the Dog (Credit: Netflix) Best picture Caryn James: The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion's western that isn't really a western, is a masterpiece – beautifully made, brilliantly acted and endlessly thoughtful about the damaging consequences of social and sexual expectations. The film is truly the year's best. But... Coda ticks so many boxes that Oscar voters usually love, with its little-movie-that-could backstory, history-making deaf cast, and an emotiveness a far cry from Campion's restraint. You might as well toss a coin to predict the outcome, but Parasite's win two years ago is a good sign for artistic films, so I'm guessing The Power of the Dog will come through. Nicholas Barber: Jane Campion's gothic western melodrama, The Power of the Dog, has long been the favourite to win best picture. Several of the other nominees are in with a chance – Coda, especially, is nipping at The Dog's heels – but none of them has as much depth, intrigue, or, well, power. The Power of the Dog should win. King Richard (Credit: Warner Bros) King Richard (Credit: Warner Bros) Best actor NB: It's bound to be third time lucky for Will Smith. He has been nominated for the best actor prize twice before, but his performance as Serena and Venus Williams's father in King Richard has a perfectly Oscar-friendly balance of movie-star charisma and deglamorised authenticity. Benedict Cumberbatch should win, though. His characterisation of an embittered, conflicted cowboy in The Power of the Dog is complex, riveting, and miles away from the stuffy scientists he usually plays. CJ: Will Smith has picked up every major award in this category leading up to the Oscars, and is likely to win. For once, the popular choice is a pretty good one. King Richard is no more than sturdy and conventional, but as the determined father of Serena and Venus Williams, Smith makes the film work. The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Credit: Searchlight) The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Credit: Searchlight) Oscar nominations 2022 Best picture Belfast; Coda; Don't Look Up; Drive My Car; Dune; King Richard; Licorice Pizza; Nightmare Alley; The Power of the Dog; West Side Story. Best actor Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos; Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog; Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick…Boom!; Will Smith, King Richard. Best actress Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye; Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter; Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers; Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos; Kristen Stewart, Spencer. Best actress CJ: Jessica Chastain might as well have had "Oscar bait" written across her forehead in fuchsia lipstick in the mediocre Eyes of Tammy Faye, but the strategy of acting-with-makeup worked well enough to get her a Screen Actors Guild award and most likely the Oscar. It would be great to have Olivia Colman win for her amazingly honest, subtle performance as a conflicted mother in The Lost Daughter, but seeing a win for her this year is magical thinking. NB: Three out of the five nominees are impersonating celebrities, and that always goes down well with the Academy's voters. Kristen Stewart plays Princess Diana in Spencer, Nicole Kidman plays Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos, and Jessica Chastain plays Tammy Faye Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. At least, I think it's Chastain under all that prosthetic make-up. Having won the Screen Actors Guild award already, she is likely to win the Oscar. But all it takes is one of Olivia Colman's fearsome glares to show that she should win her second Oscar for The Lost Daughter. Coda (Credit: Apple TV) Coda (Credit: Apple TV) Best supporting actor NB: Troy Kotsur has so far won a Bafta, a SAG award, and a Critics' Choice award for playing a dope-smoking deaf fisherman in Coda – and he has made a charming speech in American Sign Language every time. How can the Academy resist? Personally, though (and you may detect a theme here), I'd pick Kodi Smit-McPhee for The Power of the Dog. He is just as strange and magnetic as Benedict Cumberbatch is in the same film. CJ: It will be a shock if Troy Kotsur doesn't follow his SAG and Bafta wins with an Oscar for his funny, touching performance as the father in Coda. And he would make history as the first deaf actor to win an Oscar, an appealing plus for Academy voters. As good as Kotsur is though, Kodi Smit-McPhee deserves to win for his sly, nuanced performance in The Power of the Dog as a young man with many secrets to keep. West Side Story (Credit: Niko Tavernise/ 20th Century Fox) West Side Story (Credit: Niko Tavernise/ 20th Century Fox) Best supporting actress CJ: No suspense here. Ariana DeBose has won every lead-up award so far for her kinetic singing/dancing/acting role in West Side Story. She is wonderful, a dynamo on screen. In this category full of great possibilities, the award should go to Kirsten Dunst for her achingly real performance as the unhappy, unconfident wife in The Power of the Dog, but quiet performances like hers rarely win the prize. NB: Ariana DeBose is fiery, funny and vulnerable in West Side Story – and that's even before you get to her singing and dancing – so she has earnt the Oscar that she will almost certainly win. The amazing part is that Rita Moreno won an Oscar for playing the same role in the original West Side Story 60 years ago. Jane Campion/ the Power of The Dog (Credit: Netflix) Jane Campion/ the Power of The Dog (Credit: Netflix) Best director NB: Jane Campion was on the best director shortlist for The Piano in 1994. This year she should and will win the Oscar for The Power of the Dog. Any film that is nominated in 12 different categories (and I wouldn't mind if it won in all of them) must have someone exceptional in charge. CJ: Jane Campion lost to Steven Spielberg in this category 28 years ago when she was nominated for The Piano, and he for Schindler's List. This is her year, and best director is the surest win for The Power of the Dog, a glorious work of art, from the screenplay Campion wrote to the acting and pacing she guided, to the subtly inventive visuals. Against strong competition, including Spielberg for West Side Story, Campion is the year's best director, as voters for the Baftas, the Director's Guild award and most likely the Oscars will agree. Dune (Credit: Warner Bros) Dune (Credit: Warner Bros) Best original score CJ: This race is a face-off between Hans Zimmer, who has already won a Bafta for his eerie, electronically-infused Dune score, and Jonny Greenwood for The Power of the Dog. Oscar voters clearly like Zimmer. This is his 12th nomination but he has only won once, for The Lion King in 1994, so they may lean his way. The award should go to Greenwood, though. His sophisticated score, ominous without being heavy-handed, nodding to traditional westerns while creating something entirely fresh, is a perfect fit for Campion's vision. NB: Hans Zimmer may well win for his thunderous Dune score, but the fact that Jonny Greenwood doesn't have an Oscar yet is getting embarrassing. His music for The Power of the Dog is spine-tinglingly eerie – and he also found time to write the scores for Spencer and Licorice Pizza. The Lost Daughter (Credit: Netflix) The Lost Daughter (Credit: Netflix) Best adapted screenplay NB: Again, The Power of the Dog should win. Nothing else plays such sophisticated games with perspectives and expectations. It's still the favourite, but Drive My Car is catching up... CJ: It would be lovely if Maggie Gyllenhaal's exquisitely-rendered adaptation of Elena Ferrante's The Lost Daughter could share the Oscar with Jane Campion's bracing, intelligent screenplay for The Power of the Dog. Since a tie between these two writer-directors is unlikely I'm guessing the award will go to the film with the highest profile, and Campion takes another prize. Licorice Pizza (Credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer) Licorice Pizza (Credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer) Best original screenplay CJ: The Worst Person in the World should win for its cock-eyed but authentic and touching take on one woman's identity crisis and serial romances. But being nominated was a surprise in itself for this Norwegian-language gem. The likely winner will be Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza, a coming-of-age film set in Los Angeles, a place close to many voters' hearts, as well as their homes. NB: Kenneth Branagh's feelgood, semi-autobiographical Belfast has the edge here, although Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza took the prize at the Baftas, and his Oscar is overdue. If I'm honest, I'd like Don't Look Up to win, as flawed as it is, because anyone who writes an apocalyptic satire about the climate crisis deserves a prize. Encanto (Credit: Disney) Encanto (Credit: Disney) Best animated feature NB: It will be tough for any cartoon to compete with Encanto, a Disney family fable packed with colour, magic and hit songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda. But Flee should win. It says a lot that Jonas Poher Rasmussen's heart-rending chronicle of refugee life has been nominated in the international feature and documentary categories, too. CJ: What a strong category this year. The Mitchells vs the Machines and Raya and the Last Dragon are stunning and fun, and the documentary Flee (although underwhelming to me) has a lot of support from voters and high-profile film people, including Bong Joon-ho. But the thoroughly charming musical Encanto will win, and should, with its lively, warm, inclusive story about a magical family. The hit We Don't Talk About Bruno wasn't submitted for best song, but its popularity is likely to spill over here. Summer of Soul (Credit: 20th Century Studios) Summer of Soul (Credit: 20th Century Studios) Best documentary feature CJ: It can be perilous predicting a category that has shocked us with so many recent out-of-nowhere winners. My Octopus Teacher?! Icarus?! But I'm confident this time. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson's Summer of Soul (... Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is brilliant, a joyful concert film that is also a trenchant work of history, reclaiming a 50-year old music festival. Plus, Oscar voters seem to like pop music, so the film that should win actually will. NB: Summer of Soul should win and will win. The footage of the music legends at 1969's Harlem Cultural Festival is magnificent enough on its own; the wealth of social and political context added by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson takes it to another level. Drive My Car (Credit: Janus Films) Drive My Car (Credit: Janus Films) Best international feature NB: Drive My Car, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's rueful three-hour adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story, has been winning prizes everywhere it goes, and it's been nominated for four Oscars: best international feature, best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay. It's a racing certainty to win in this category, if not in one or two others. CJ: The surest bet going into the Oscars is Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car winning the international film prize. For me, this eloquent Japanese film about a grieving theatre director and the sensitive young woman who drives him around is a close second to Power of the Dog for best picture overall. The fact that it is also nominated in that top category is a sign of how highly it is regarded by Oscar voters, too. The Power of the Dog (Netflix) The Power of the Dog (Netflix) Best cinematography CJ: Will Ari Wegner become the first woman to win the Oscar for cinematography? Yes. Should she? Absolutely, but redressing the way women have been left out of that category is a just a grace note. Wegner's glowing, burnished cinematography gives The Power of the Dog its scope, its realistic feel (could be Montana, but it's actually New Zealand) and serves Jane Campion's artistry and fondness for skewed angles, as her characters peer at the landscape or glance at each other, with lust or menace. NB: Greig Fraser will win for the vast desert vistas he puts on screen in Dune, but it sometimes feels like a cheat when there is so much CGI mixed in. In a strong category, Janusz Kamiński should win for West Side Story, because his camera whirls through New York with all the elegance and agility of the dancers being filmed. Film we most wished we'd seen on a big screen NB: The pea-brained monster smackdown Godzilla vs Kong would have been pretty pointless at the best of times – but watching its humungous heroes punching each other on a TV or a laptop? That's the definition of a waste of time. CJ: The year has given us films that would look gorgeous on big screens or small, such as Nomadland and Ammonite. But the way Spike Lee plays with visuals in Da 5 Bloods, changing the aspect ratios and texture of the look to distinguish different time periods as he explores the legacy of the Vietnam War, might have immersed us in that brilliant film even more in a cinema. The reusable spaceplane concept seemed to die with the end of Nasa's Space Shuttle. Could the spaceplane rise again in the 21st Century? T The dream of flying all the way into space began when the first aircraft flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. Less than 70 years later, we had a thoroughly realistic example of what that might look like. In Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), a large spaceplane maneuvers effortlessly in time with Strauss's Blue Danube waltz to dock with a huge spinning space station. Despite many plans, prototypes, and experimental flights since, only two spaceplanes have ever entered service, the Space Shuttle and the top-secret Boeing X-37B. Only the small, unmanned Boeing remains in service. The dream of the graceful spaceplane is still live, even if the ambition for their actual role may have shrunk. In September 2020, China appears to have launched its own Boeing-like reusable space plane and may have as many as seven crewed and non-crewed spaceplane projects in development. The European Space Agency's similar autonomous Space Rider flying laboratory is expected to blast off in 2023 and India's own mini spaceplane later this decade. But we still rely on rockets to blast astronauts into space, bringing them back to Earth in capsules suspended by parachute. So why has the spaceplane – apart from Nasa's now-retired Space Shuttle – not yet taken off? One answer to this question can be found at a test site 2,900km (1,800 miles) away from Kitty Hawk at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The facility at the Colorado Air and Space Port was purpose-built by Reaction Engines to run "hot tests" of the technology that the company's revolutionary new rocket engine depends on. Tests that were backed by the US government's secretive Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). Reaction Engines is a British aerospace company founded by engineers Alan Bond, Richard Varvill and John Scott in 1989 after the cancellation of the British spaceplane project Hotol. Its aim was to create Hotol's successor, the ultra-sleek, single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane Skylon, together with the engine that would power it. The Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine (Sabre) is a hydrogen-powered engine that can propel a spaceplane like Skylon from zero to hypersonic speeds by using the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere, and then when travelling fast enough, blast the vehicle into space using an on-board supply of oxygen like a conventional rocket. You might also like: The reuseable spaceplane launched inside a rocket The secrets of the US military spaceplane Why Europe’s astronauts are learning Chinese Today they are backed by big names in the industry, including Boeing, British Aerospace and Rolls-Royce, as well as the UK and European space agencies. Beyond the security fence, a modified engine from a Cold War-era fighter jet is used to replicate the very high temperature airflow generated at hypersonic speeds. The superheated air is blasted through a light-weight, ring-like device made up of thousands of thin-walled tubes through which coolant is passed. The aim of this precooler is to remove the extreme heat very quickly. When used in the Sabre engine, it's hoped it will prevent its internal components melting in the high temperatures and ensure the engine runs efficiently. Early in 2019, the precooler had worked at 420C (788F) in conditions that replicated flight speeds of Mach 3.3, or more than three times the speed of sound. But the engineers wanted to reach the magic number of Mach 5. That is more than 6,200 km per hour (3,800 mph). It is also more than twice as fast as the cruising speed of Concorde and over 50 percent faster than the SR-71 Blackbird aircraft – the world's fastest jet-engine-powered aircraft. Mach 5 also happens to be the limit of today's materials used in aircraft production. Reaction engines' Colorado test site has an engine from a fighter jet to help run experiments (Credit: Reaction Engines) Reaction engines' Colorado test site has an engine from a fighter jet to help run experiments (Credit: Reaction Engines) At Mach 5 and an altitude of 20km (12 miles) Sabre stops breathing the air, closes it inlets and starts to burn liquid oxygen mixed with its hydrogen fuel to reach speeds of Mach 25 which allow it to go into Earth orbit. In October 2019, the record was smashed, and Mach 5 was reached. The precooler successfully "quenched" air flowing into the machine at more than 1,000C (1,800F) in less than 1/20th of a second. The success of the test earned team leader Helen Webber the Royal Aeronautical Society's prestigious Sir Ralph Robins medal for engineering leadership, and the wider team a haul of awards. "We achieved something that has never been done before," says Webber. "This was a major moment in the development of a breakthrough aerospace technology. This success moves us one step closer to the realisation of Sabre and paves the way for hypersonic flight." Reaction Engines work with "different interested parties" who might build a spaceplane Now Webber is working on the core of the Sabre engine itself. While we may have to wait 10 years for flight trials of the engine to begin, their innovative heat-management technology looks set to be applied to other areas. In electric cars, for example, new efficient light-weight heat exchangers will make lithium batteries charge faster and last longer. "Reaction Engines are doing a nice job of saying we are going to develop this technology first, and then this one," says Christopher Combs, University of Texas at San Antonio. "It is easier to pitch heat exchangers to investors which can be used in a jet fighter in five years than pitching the Skylon and saying it will take 30 years to build." Perhaps oddly, it is hard to find mention of Skylon on the Reaction Engines website. "Skylon was the concept vehicle to show how the Sabre engine could be used," says Oliver Nailard, the business development manager at Reaction Engines. "We are not developing a vehicle. In the near term we are focused on the engine, but at the same time, we have to make sure that the space vehicle technologies are being developed alongside it." The Skylon was one mid-90s concept for a multi-Mach spaceplane (Credit: SSPL/Getty Images) The Skylon was one mid-90s concept for a multi-Mach spaceplane (Credit: SSPL/Getty Images) To this end, Reaction Engines work with "different interested parties" who might build a spaceplane. In 2020, the company worked with the ESA on a more conservative concept of a two-stage vehicle to be launched from French Guyana in the next decade. The concept of a spaceplane is simple, though it has been attached to a confusing array of vehicles. A very loose definition could mean that the Boeing 747 that launched Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne is classified as a spaceplane because it is the equivalent to a spacecraft's first stage. There are two types of "real spaceplanes", says Jean Deville, the Shenzhen-based author of the China Aerospace Blog, and co-host of a podcast about Chinese aerospace and technology, Donfang Hour. "The easiest version is when the spaceplane is blasted into space on the back of a traditional vertical take-off rocket, like the Space Shuttle. The hardest is when the launch vehicle takes off horizontally and reaches space by a progressive trajectory, or when both stages are spaceplanes, like China's Tengyun concept." The technology of spaceplanes overlaps with that of hypersonic weapons and aircraft It is easy to list the advantages of spaceplanes. There is the compelling idea of "flying" to a space station and back just as we fly in an airliner from New York to San Francisco. There is the ability of spaceplanes to use runways rather than requiring expensive launch pads, which also means they can be launched and landed more often. And if you want to a retrieve a satellite, then a spaceplane – and not a crewed capsule, returning to Earth via parachute – is the only solution. Spaceplanes can also be used to test military equipment, and even to intercept enemy satellites. The technology of spaceplanes overlaps with that of hypersonic weapons and aircraft. For this reason Reaction Engines is a member of a research programme funded by the UK Ministry of Defence to develop hypersonic propulsion systems for aircraft. Unfortunately, the space industry hasn't evolved in the way that spaceplane advocates wanted. "We have made far more progress with computers than rockets," says David Burbach of the US Naval War College, Rhode Island. "Automation means that we really don't need to send many people into space. It may seem primitive, it may seem undignified, but rockets are actually all we need at the moment." The Soviet Buran was another promising spaceplane design, but it never completed a manned mission before the fall of the USSR (Peter Kovalev/TASS/Getty Images) The Soviet Buran was another promising spaceplane design, but it never completed a manned mission before the fall of the USSR (Peter Kovalev/TASS/Getty Images) There is also, some analysts believe, little demand at the moment to bring satellites back to Earth because they have become cheaper to build, longer lasting and, frankly, disposable. Space X's Starlink satellite constellation uses thousands of mass-produced small satellites to expand internet access. And spaceplanes involve expensive technological challenges. Materials are needed that are tough and light enough to survive frequent return trips to space, and there is the problem of integrating the two or three different types of propulsion systems needed for different stages of the flight. "This is, in my opinion, one of the major difficulties," says Deville. "Ultimately, the main obstacle to spaceplane projects is that the development requires very deep pockets," he adds. "This is why Europe and the USSR and Russia walked away from the concept." It may be that only a billionaire can tolerate the cost of failure involved in developing a spaceplane Then there is the competition. "SpaceX has a reputation for pushing a lot of boundaries, but it is killing the spaceplane," says Combs. "They are doing such a good job of making space access cheap it's eliminating the motivation to invest in expensive spaceplane research." It may be that only a billionaire can tolerate the cost of failure involved in developing a spaceplane. Despite the recent success of the Boeing X-37B in a niche military role, spaceplane fans are used to disappointment. Russian-Soviet spaceflight pioneer Friedrich Zander designed an interplanetary spaceplane in 1911 with wings designed to burn off during its ascent. In the 1930s, Austrian engineer Eugen Sänger came up with the idea of a rocket-powered suborbital bomber to bomb New York. Thankfully, the Nazis never produced it. In the 1950s, rocket designer Wernher von Braun set out his vision for a "rocket with wings" in Collier's magazine and the US Air Force dusted down Sänger's idea. The Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar (yes, it was called that) was cancelled in favour of the Gemini programme. The original Gemini spacecraft was supposed to blast into space on a rocket and land on a runway like a paraglider, until that too was cancelled. Once-secret Soviet projects also failed. The MiG-105, for instance, was a crewed test vehicle developed for an on-off Soviet plan to build a spaceplane. It first flew in 1976, but the Experimental Passenger Orbital Aircraft (Epos), as the project was named, was finally cancelled two years later. Nasa's spaceplane era so far ended with the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet in 2011 (Credit: Ted Soqui/Corbis/Getty Images) Nasa's spaceplane era so far ended with the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet in 2011 (Credit: Ted Soqui/Corbis/Getty Images) Then every nation wanted its own spaceplane. Inspired by Nasa's Space Shuttle, the Soviet Union's Buran flew one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988, before the programme was cancelled. Plans for European and Japanese spaceplanes stayed just that – plans. China's intent to build its own spaceplane was shelved because rockets were a quicker way into the space race. "China launched its first taikonauts into space in 2003 instead of a projected 2020," says Deville. Despite the poor performance of the Shuttle, the US didn't stop dreaming of a reusable spaceplane. The futuristic Lockheed Martin X-33 or Venture Star was cancelled at an advanced stage owing to technical problems. Other top-secret programmes were rumoured to exist. Out of these projects the unmanned Boeing X-37B was born. Boeing's proposal for a larger, crewed version, was turned down. "When I was a kid, I watched all these incredibly cool sci-fiction vehicles take off like an aeroplane and fly into space," says Combs. "It's the kind of aspirational technology that makes people want to be engineers and that engineers want to build, particularly when spaceplanes have been so tantalisingly close for such a long time." So, is there then a future for the spaceplane? Whichever future the spaceplane does have, it will involve China The race to develop hypersonic aircraft and weapons may indeed help solve the technological problems that face spaceplane projects. Or the niche role played by the craft like the Boeing may be the best it gets. "Outer space is a place of crushed dreams and broken promises," says Bleddyn Bowen, University of Leicester, and author of War in Space: Strategy, Spacepower, Geopolitics. "Spaceplanes may simply provide a useful orbital testbed for new technologies." However, one thing is certain. Whichever future the spaceplane does have, it will involve China. "We know very little about the launch [of China's experimental spaceplane]," says Deville. "But it shows that China is serious about developing its spaceplane concepts." "In the end, people are looking for space access to go beyond what they can do today," says Reaction Engines' Nailard. "They are looking for the ability to launch on demand. And we need to move towards this aircraft model if we are to finally unlock the potential of space." Dear Reader, President Biden just made [one move that could end the 2024 election before it even begins](. That’s right, the Democrats may have already won the race without a single speech, campaign, or promise. [Video preview]( [This is a controversial topic…]( And a lot of powerful people would rather this exposé never saw the light of day. Chances are, they’ll attempt to have it scrubbed from existence. That’s because it tells the true story of how the Democrats and Biden are planning a complete takeover of the U.S. political, economic, and financial system. To get all the details… Including how to protect your wealth in the days ahead… [Go here now to watch this new expose before it’s taken offline.]( The action comedy, directed by Elizabeth Banks and featuring Ray Liotta in his final role, has "gonzo potential" but "loses momentum" and is "strangely timid", writes Nicholas Barber. I In 1985, a US drug dealer threw 40 packages of cocaine out of a small private plane and down into the Tennessee/Georgia forest below. One of those packages was eaten by a black bear, which died of an overdose soon afterwards. If that weren't enough of an indignity, the bear was stuffed and put on display in the Kentucky For Kentucky Fun Mall, which sounds like something Nicole Kidman's character planned to do in the first Paddington film. It's a tawdry tale of humanity's selfish mistreatment of the natural world, but you can see how it might be the basis of a very different type of story: a raucous action comedy about an enormous fanged beast going on a drug-crazed rampage through a national park. And that's what Cocaine Bear is – or what it tries to be, anyway. More like this: - The most shocking film of the year? - The worst Marvel movie yet - Films that scare in unexplainable ways Directed by Elizabeth Banks and written by Jimmy Warden, the film opens by introducing the dealer (Matthew Rhys), who is flying high in more ways than one. It isn't entirely clear why he is getting rid of duffel bags whose contents are worth millions of dollars apiece, but it's a rollicking sequence with a hilariously nasty twist ending. Then there's a scene in Georgia's Chattahoochee National Park – an area called Blood Mountain, ominously – featuring a happily engaged pair of European hikers. "We have such good luck in nature," coos one of them when she spots a Baloo lookalike in the distance. But she and her fiancé soon notice that the bear is "demented", and they try desperately to make sense of the ursine code of conduct: "If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lay down." Most viewers will wish that it was wittier, faster, and more willing to fulfil the gonzo potential of its in-your-face title Once Banks has demonstrated that she is not afraid to kill off endearing characters in the most gleefully gory way, she moves on to a montage of 1980s anti-drugs adverts, which establishes the period setting, and suggests that she has some political satire in mind. At this stage, Cocaine Bear promises to be a guilty pleasure that is both deeply guilty and highly pleasurable. If only the rest of the film had kept that promise. After its deliciously sharp opening minutes, though, it loses its momentum. Clearly, Banks and Warden thought that having an apex predator lunging from the undergrowth and tearing people's limbs off would give them enough meme-worthy moments for a viral trailer, and perhaps even for a cult hit. And they were probably right. The bear's Jaws-like attacks make you jump and chuckle, despite some less-than-convincing CGI, and they happen just often enough to justify the film's existence. But Banks and Warden don't seem to know what to do in between those grisly – or grizzly – set pieces. In short, the bits with a bear in them are a lot better than the bits that don't have a bear in them. And there are a lot more of the latter than the former. Instead of showing us the moment when the title character discovered and ingested the drugs, the film keeps introducing more and more characters who could have been in the first draft of a Coen brothers script. A tough nurse (Keri Russell) is searching for her missing daughter (Brooklynn Prince) with the help of a forest ranger (Margo Martindale) and a conservationist (Jesse Tyler Ferguson). A drug lord (Ray Liotta) wants his cocaine back. Two of his henchmen (Alden Ehrenreich and O'Shea Jackson Jr) swap sub-Tarantino banter and play a game of 20 Questions. And a police detective (Isiah Whitlock Jr) worries that his new pet dog isn't as masculine as the one he wanted. As these characters wander around the park, they are almost funny enough to keep us interested, but their scenes still seem weirdly sluggish and redundant, because they don't have much to do with the one character we want to know more about: the bear. Given the premise, the film could have made some provocative points about the environment, or cruelty to animals, or America's war on drugs. Alternatively, it could have made no points whatsoever, and just been a helter-skelter, blood-and-guts exploitation movie in which a bunch of manic misfits are chomped to pieces. But what we actually get is strangely timid for a film called Cocaine Bear. Ironically, it doesn't have much bite. Rather than focusing on being outrageous and entertaining, Banks and Warden focus on sappy musings about the importance of being a caring parent and a loyal friend. But if you pay to see a B-movie about a furry giant with a taste for class-A narcotics, why would you want to hear those? It might be best to watch Cocaine Bear at home, where you can skip past the rambling sections and go straight to the laughs and screams. In the cinema, most viewers will wish that it was wittier, faster, and more willing to fulfil the gonzo potential of its in-your-face title. It's definitely better than Banks's last film, Charlie's Angels, but you can't help feeling that she has done the bear minimum. [divider] [WSW footer logo]( You are receiving this e-mail because you have expressed an interest in the Financial Education niche on one of our landing pages or sign-up forms on our website. If you {EMAIL} received this e-mail in error and would like to report spam, simply send an email to abuse@wallstreetwizardry.com. You’ll receive a response within 24 hours. 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