内容摘要：Mr Varvill knew the business had to raise more funds towards the end of 2024 but big investors were reluctant to jump on board.

Mr Varvill knew the business had to raise more funds towards the end of 2024 but big investors were reluctant to jump on board.

"My team had put heart and soul into the company and we had a good cry. "Did they really shed tears? "Absolutely, I had my tears at our final meeting where we joined hands and stood up. I said 'We still did great, take a bow."

What lessons can we draw for other high-tech ventures? "You definitely have no choice but to be optimistic," says Mr Dissel.The grim procedure of winding down the business took over as passwords and laptops were collected while servers were backed up in case "some future incarnation of the business can be preserved".The company had been going in various guises for 35 years. "We didn't want it to go to rust. I expect the administrator will look for a buyer for the intellectual property assets," Mr Dissel adds.

Other former employees also hold out for a phoenix rising from the ashes. But the Valley of Death looms large."Reaction Engines was playing at the very edge of what was possible. We were working for the fastest engines and highest temperatures. We bit off the hard job," says Mr Dissel.

Despite all this Mr Varvill's own epitaph for the business overshadows technological milestones. "We failed because we ran out of money."

A West Yorkshire art gallery is attempting to raise sufficient funds to purchase a Dame Barbara Hepworth sculpture "for the nation"."Such methods of collective or family punishment violates the very foundations of a democratic justice system."

The family members include Mr Soliman's wife, Hayam El Gamal, 41, as well as the couple's 17-year-old daughter, two other daughters and two sons.They are being held at an immigration detention centre in Texas, over 900 miles (1,450km) from their home in Colorado.

Department of Homeland Security officials have said that Mr Soliman arrived in the US on a tourist visa in August 2022. That visa expired the following year. He made an asylum claim in September 2022.According to police documents, the suspect told officials that he "never talked to his wife or his family" about his plans, and that he had left a phone in a desk drawer with messages to his wife and children. His wife turned the phone in to authorities.