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Posted on 11/10/2004 9:31:28 AM PST by the_gospel_of_thomas
washingtonpost.com With 'Scramjet,' NASA Shoots for Mach 10
By Guy Gugliotta Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A01
HAMPTON, Va. -- They call it a "scramjet," an engine so blindingly fast that it could carry an airplane from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in about 20 minutes -- or even quicker. So fast it could put satellites in space. So fast it could drop a cruise missile on an enemy target, almost like shooting a rifle.
Next week, NASA plans to break the aircraft speed record for the second time in 7 1/2 months by flying its rocket-assisted X-43A scramjet craft 110,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean at speeds close to Mach 10 -- about 7,200 mph, or 10 times the speed of sound.
The flight will last perhaps 10 seconds and end with the pilotless aircraft plunging to a watery grave 850 miles off the California coast. But even if the X-43A doesn't set the record, it has already proved that the 40-year-old dream of "hypersonic" flight -- using air-breathing engines to reach speeds above Mach 5 (3,800 mph) -- has become reality.
Unlike rockets, which must carry oxygen with them as a "combustor" to ignite the fuel supply, scramjets take oxygen from the atmosphere, offering a huge savings in aircraft weight, and researchers around the world would like to take advantage.
In northeast Australia, a scramjet team funded by the U.S. and Australian armed forces will try for Mach 10 next year as a first step in using a scramjet to put satellites in space. The U.S. Air Force hopes to demonstrate within five years a scramjet-driven cruise missile fast enough to drive explosives deep into hardened targets. Other projects are moving forward in France and Japan.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
NASA is racing to stay ahead of Richard Branson.
There is a simple reason why the test flights are only designed to last about ten seconds, material has yet been developed to withstand the forces and the temperature for longer flights. I believe we are a long way from sustained hypersonic flight within the atmosphere.
Order 100,000 of them, NOW!
BTTT
"an engine so blindingly fast that it could carry an airplane from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in about 20 minutes -- or even quicker"
Yes, but they would have to use a putty knife to remove you from your seat.
Can we stuff Hanoi John into this sucker?
Just a wee bit faster.
> material has yet been developed to withstand the forces and the temperature for longer flights
Not strictly true. The larger the vehicle, the lower it's surface-are-to-volume ratio. Consequently, for something like a hypersonic passenger transport 200 times larger than the X-43, active cooling using the hydrogen fuel woudl be *relatively* easy. To rather small values of "relative," of course...
Little dinky things like this, though, are toast.
Not unless you sat encased in a vat of water, as an object in water is immune to the effect of G-forces.
ping
Horse hockey! Velocity has no bearing on perceived weight. Water does not cushion one from the effects of acceleration.
Time to hit the Physics books guys.
Cushion maybe, make immune - no way.
My memory was that it took 2 hours
It was a B-1, and the wait was 18 minutes.
That kind of acceleration will snap your head back just a wee bit.
I stand corrected, Thanks.
Domino's JDAM! Avoid the Noid!
Papa John's JDAM: Better ingredients, better KABOOM!
Why would Japan team up with france? france will just ruin or free ride on all of Japan's plans... So we can expect Japan's experiments to be some 10-20 years behind because of their addition of france... I'm not kidding, I suspect that because of france their plans are off by an entire decade, at least.
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