Posted on 03/29/2004 8:07:39 AM PST by presidio9
A revolutionary jet engine flew faster than seven times the speed of sound in a high altitude test over the Pacific on Saturday, marking what NASA (news - web sites) scientists hailed as a milestone in developing the "Holy Grail" of space travel.
"It's been an outstanding, record-breaking day," lead propulsion engineer Lawrence Huebner told a post-flight briefing.
NASA's 12-foot-long X-43A research vehicle -- resembling a winged surfboard -- hit slightly over Mach 7, about 5,000 mph, during 11 seconds of powered flight before gliding at hypersonic speeds for several minutes and finally plunging into the ocean.
The test, conducted off the southern California coast, marked the first time that a "scramjet," or supersonic-combustion ramjet, has powered a vehicle at such high speed.
"The ramjet-scramjet is the Holy Grail of aeronautics in my mind," project manager Joel Sitz told the briefing. "If you go from ground to space, you need to use a ramjet-scramjet if you're going to do it in the most efficient way you can."
Rather than carrying both the fuel and oxygen needed to provide acceleration, like a conventional rocket engine does, scramjet engines carry only hydrogen fuel and pull the oxygen needed to burn that fuel from the atmosphere.
Researchers at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, on the western edge of the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, hope the new engine will revolutionize aviation, speeding the development of significantly faster aircraft and lowering the cost of launching payloads.
Huebner said the test had set a world speed record for a craft powered by an air-breathing engine.
"To put this in perspective, a little over 100 years ago a couple of guys from Ohio flew for 120 feet in the first controlled powered flight," he said, referring to the Wright brothers.
"Today, we did something very similar in the same amount of time, but our vehicle under air-breathing power went over 15 miles."
Project members said the successful test had important commercial and military implications.
"Efficient access to space opens up a whole new world for industry in the future, to be able to get to space and get back, quickly, and do it several times a month," Sitz said.
Project chief engineer Griffin Corpening said NASA had shown what was possible. "Now business and industry and the military can come forward with confidence that they can now use this kind of a propulsion system," he said.
The first test of the X-43A in June 2001 ended in failure after a malfunction in the booster rocket attached to the test vehicle forced NASA scientists to blow up the plane.
During Saturday's test, a modified B-52 bomber dropped the X-43A at an altitude of around 40,000 feet.
A rocket attached to the 2,800-pound research vehicle then boosted it to an altitude of 95,000 feet, setting the stage for the scramjet engine test.
Later this year, NASA researchers hope to test the engine at Mach 10, or about 7,000 mph, as part of their Hyper-X program.
The vehicle used in Saturday's test will not be recovered from the ocean due to the high cost of such an effort.
Cool. I noticed that the vehicle was the subject of today's APOD They have some links to the project that I'll take a look at tonight.
Mystery over new Russian weapon -- Drudge Report
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Russia has designed a "revolutionary" weapon that would make the prospective U.S. missile defense useless, Russian news agencies reported, quoting a senior Defense Ministry official.
The official, who was not identified by name, said tests conducted during last month's military maneuvers would dramatically change the philosophy behind development of Russia's nuclear forces, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported on Monday.
If deployed, the new weapon would take the value of any U.S. missile shield to "zero," the news agencies quoted the official as saying.
The official said the new weapon would be inexpensive, providing an "asymmetric answer" to U.S. missile defenses, which are proving extremely costly to develop.
Russia, meanwhile, also has continued research in prospective missile defenses and has an edge in some areas compared to other nations, the official said.
The statement reported Monday was in line with claims by President Vladimir Putin's that experiments performed during last month's maneuvers proved that Russia could soon build strategic weapons that could puncture any missile-defense system.
At the time, Col-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, explained that the military tested a "hypersonic flying vehicle" that was able to maneuver between space and the earth's atmosphere.
Military analysts said that the mysterious new weapons could be a maneuverable ballistic missile warhead or a hypersonic cruise missile.
While Putin said the development of such new weapons wasn't aimed against the United States, most observers viewed the move as Moscow's retaliation to the U.S. missile defense plans.
After years of vociferous protests, Russia reacted calmly when Washington withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 in order to develop of a nationwide missile shield. But U.S.-Russian relations have soured again lately, and Moscow has complained about Washington's plans to build new low-yield nuclear weapons.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
Very interesting how great "allies" play their cards.
Of course, elements of technology can be demonstrated in a civilian/unclassified version (such as the X-43 test) and deployed in a military version.
Or an SR-71.
Yes it is. In order to get into space, you need to go through the atmosphere.
Conventional rockets carry along liquid oxygen and a fuel (typically liquid hydrogen or kerosene) and hose it out through a big rocket engine.
The nice part of using oxygen out of the atmosphere is that you don't have to use precious launch mass carrying oxidizer (and associated tanks, lines, and pumps) for that stage of the mission. Further, the beauty of this particular approach is that you also don't have to lug around a complicated rocket or turbine engine.
This is potentially a very big deal, as long as: a) it's possible to scale this thing up; and b) it can be done relatively cheaply.
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