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Scramjet Test Flight Less Than Successful
Sunthorn writes: "After much hype NASA was forced to destroy the X-43 prototype seconds into the flight after the launch rocket went out of control." The BBC has another story with some pre-flight pictures. Anybody have actual flight photos? Update: 06/02 8:28 PM by michael : Emperor writes "The official NASA take on the X-43
destruction." Update: 06/03 10:18 AM by michael : And someone else sent in this photo gallery, with some really nice close-ups.
After the engine design is refined to the point of being operationally implementable - i.e. we can build them, and they work - I would imagine the next phase of the program would be better fuselage design to accomodate room for passengers, a pilot, missiles, satellites, etc.
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I think this stage of the testing is geared to study the engine dynamics more than anything else - i.e. how does the scramjet perform under specific controlled conditions. Looking at the current fuselage design, I believe it's current purpose is simply to give the engine what it needs to get started at hypersonic speeds, and run long enough for us to be doing telemetry on the *engine*, not the rest of the plane itself.
So, we're only seeing a small part of the eventual (hopefully) implemented design of scramjet-based transportation systems.
I'm sure we'll get to the rest of the plan once the engines have been proven and tested. It's all about the scramjet right now, in other words
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Hmm. The SR-71 uses ramjets. The SR-71 was delivered (i.e. operational) in 1966. So, in fact, we've had operational ramjet engines for about 35 years now. Actually, it's a turbojet/ramjet--it operates as a turbojet at subsonic speeds, and as a ramjet at supersonic speeds.
Scramjets are another issue altogether. They are closely related to ramjets, but the only alleged operational scramjet is on the Aurora, the successor to the SR-71. Of course, that is *pure* speculation, as the Aurora has not been officially confirmed.
--Be human.
From everyone's posts so far, it seems like there are some misconceptions about scramjets.
;-) tells me it's something in excess of Mach 3.
People keep asking why they didn't separate the booster from the scramjet so they can gather as much information from the scramjet as possible. Others are asking why they didn't separate, then let the scramjet operate to gather information.
Well, folks, a scramjet has to get to sufficient speed before it will even work. I am no supersonic aeronautical engineer, but my failing memory (too much LDS in college
Well, in that case, if there's a failure with the booster rocket, there's absolutely nothing you can gather from the experiment. You can't fire the bloody scramjet engine. Separating the booster from the scramjet wouldn't do any good.
Furthermore, we've all seen the damage caused when a 747 hits the water at ~250mph. It breaks apart in a spectacular fashion. It takes years for experts to piece together the reckage to determine what happens. Now, imagine what happens when an object hits the water at 700+mph. It would be pretty damn difficult to get any valuable information from it. Furthermore, the risks to public safety would be incredibly high if NASA let this thing go.
In the end, that's the reason they blew it up. No information can be gathered about the scramjet, and it poses a risk to public safety.
--Be human.
I couldn't agree with you more. These things are not called prototypes because the word sounds cool. They fail. A lot. And the engineers learn something from every failure.
(Remember that whole "scientific method" thing, all you Computer Science majors here? The bit about designing an experiment, and when it fails, feeding the results back into the next attempt? When was the last time any of you wrote a non-trivial program that didn't have a serious flaw? How long did it take you to find the flaw? Probably longer than the few seconds it took NASA...)
Why do you think we refer to difficult tasks as rocket science? :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
my bugs don't explode in a giant supersonic fireball and rain shrapnel on the test site.
Clearly you're using the wrong programming language. I understand that this is perfectly normal in, say, Perl. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I'd be cautious of having an opinion about something like that without hedging a bit. While I can see the point that private industry would be more efficient in implementing space programs, but I'd argue that it would lead to short-sightedness in research. Corporations are notoriously short-sighted (ex. AT&T not recognizing until 1998 that the internet would put long-distance carriers out of business) and space research could go from focusing on projects that have little immediate returns (but long term potential gains) to focusing on projects that can make a quick buck. I'd argue that a blend of both public and private research would be ideal, with a public agency like NASA focusing on long-term research (like studying comets, deep space, etc), and private companies focusing on short-term projects (like a moon base).
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
there are images of this flight somewhere. you don't spend tens of millions on an X project without doing something as basic as taking video of it's launch. whether or not you will ever get to see them is another story, of course. here is an example of still images and an mpeg video from another pegasus launch.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
If you believe the schedule at Nasa Television, there will be a press conference at 6:30 on Saturday, to be repeated at 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, and 10pm on Sunday (all times are EDT).
Don't forget space.com
All (or at least most) tax-payer funded space research and missions should be privatized. A company can do things better, cheaper, and faster than a government can. NASA has been proving that for years...
:) Unless those panels are built by robots (powered by what?) we'll need a place for at least a few people. Sure, they can set up greenhouses, but they need to free that oxygen, mine that metal, set up power plants, make the actual greenhouses... don't you get the feeling that this project might take a while? I mean, it was only 32 years ago that we just barely made it to the moon, and as this article suggests, we're still at the "our equipment goes out of control sometimes" stage. And it's just a little harder to get oxygen from rocks than from water. Speaking of which, you'll need water too.
NASA may seem bad, but since there has not yet been anything comparable to compare them to, your comparison doesn't hold water. Also, think about electrical suppliers in California. PG&E has been "proving" the opposite of your claim for quite a while now...
Besides, all NASA does is contract out to those same companies. It's not like they build the rockets themselves. "Privatization" just means that Congress is paying Boeing directly (instead of funding NASA, who then pay Boeing or whoever). That won't create more accountability - it'll create less! Congress can't be bothered with all the details of every spending bill. At best, they'll make a committee or create an organization to deal with space funding - which basically means they're recreating NASA.
Bids should be VERY open, so that there isn't any pork-belly pay-offs like are so common now, and there should be massive accountability with the funds (hey, thats MY money you just blew up...).
Yeah, we all know how private corporations are historically good at being accoutable for their spending (Savings and Loan bailout, anyone?). Also, I'm sure they can run an honest "VERY open" auction without anyone checking up on them.
The moon is 20 percent metal, 20 percent silicon, and 60 percent oxygen (not in an atmospere). It is the perfect place for solar harvesting. The panels could even be made in factories on the moon. It would be zero polution, as electricity is free on the moon, all you can eat.
And we will be eating electricity, because there's no food on the moon
It should be done, and it should be done immediately. Such an effort on the moon would change life as we know it here on earth, and could eliminate fossil fuel needs by 2010...
How were we going to transmit that power back to Earth? Oh, I get it - this is the start of a new science fiction story!
Seriously, I'm surprised that a post so full of speculation and conjecture got marked up so high. For example, replacing fossil fuels is a worthy goal, but really, why not just put more solar plants on Earth? Isn't putting them on the Moon just a bit of overkill? It's far easier to transmit power from sunny equatorial regions to the far reaches of the Earth than from the Moon to the same.
- More of it might have been salvageable.
- More information might be gleaned from the rocket itself once it was retrieved.
Does anyone who's close to such launches know whether it would it have been close enough to land that there was a risk it would veer back and "fall on someone", to put it mildly? I know solid-fuel rockets usually can't be turned off once activated, is this the case with this one also? If they could have just deactivated, it wouldn't have been better to just turn it off and let it fall into the ocean?Oh, new thought: environmental damage from all that fuel,, vs. if you blow it up it doesn't fall into the ocean. (These things burn fairly efficiently, no?) Am I way off-base?
Second new thought: If it's just the BOOSTER ROCKET carrying it aloft, couldn't they have forced separation, waited a few moments for the prototype of the aircraft itself to fall a little out of danger, and THEN exploded the "booster rocket"? Eventually there would be separation anyway, so obviously it's within design specs...and if you CAN'T separate prematurely, isn't that stupid design? If they put explosives on it for self-destruction, it means they were thinking of worst-case scenarios already...why not salvage some of that few dozen million dollars while you're at it?
Thoughts, as always, are welcome.
~
scramjet's are very simple mechanically. No moving parts, just hydrogen injectors which combust supersonic oxygen to allow sustained hypersonic speeds.
To get to supersonic speed you need to operate a scramjet, you need a booster rocket of some sort. The booster rocket is what failed in this experiment, careening the entire assembly off course. Rockets are tempermental beasts, unfortunately.
Thankfully, this probably wouldnt set research back much. The mechanical simplicity of the test plane makes it pretty easy to build another. The 30 years of research went into the design of the airbox (and it really is just a box w/ injectors) to make it aerodynamically stable enough for use.
What amuses me is the news stations assertions of "30 minute trip between los angeles and new york!".. well not really. You'd have to speed up to the hypersonic speed safely and then slow down safely. All in all you'd be in hypersonic mode for a couple of minutes, if that. Hardly worth it for the trip. Better for far away destinations.
http://www.aviation-history.com/engines/ramjet.h tm has a comparison of scramjets vs. ramjets.
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These these are *** experiments ***
For some reason people seem to feel that experiments MUST reach their desired outcome first go or the project is a failure.
If we were able to do this then we wouldn't ever need to do experiments - we would go straight to production every time. (and have no more accidental discoveries either- which fairly much everything started with at some time, even electrical energy)
At the moment I am a bit down on marketing so I blame marketing for over hyping the immediate possiblities rather than presenting a longer term view.
Sure the thing tanked before it could complete its mission and NASA didn't get nearly as much data from it as they wanted. They did get some data though. If nothing else, they learned to make damn sure their reasonably reliable Pegasus boosters are thoroughly extra checked over before ignition.
Additionally, they intended to slam this thing into the ocean at the end of the run anyways. The test hardware that was destroyed wasn't all that expensive to begin with (compared to most other things at NASA). Most of the X-43 budget was spent on designing the space plane, not actually building the functioning single use model (not prototype; the eventual space plane is going to be MUCH bigger) that was destroyed today. Given my experience with NASA, I suspect the largest lost cost in today's failure was the Pegasus missile and all the red tape involved in scheduling the launch itself.
NASA still has two or three more X-43's to try again with. And they will try again, and next time it will probably work. Despite what some people here might say, they're not complete fools over at NASA.
I have to wonder just how many people out there were even aware this test was going on today before they saw this news article? How many people would have noticed or cared if it hadn't failed?
I am reminded of a report of the words of Robert Goddard when one of his early liquid fuel rockets exploded. Someone asked him how he felt about his latest failure. He said it was not a failure, "we have gathered valuable negative information!"
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Projects/hyperx/developme nts.html
Currently, there is no information on the destruction of the vehicle there yet, but will probably be posted soon.
Shame of Slashdot
All (or at least most) tax-payer funded space research and missions should be privatized. A company can do things better, cheaper, and faster than a government can. NASA has been proving that for years...
Bids should be VERY open, so that there isn't any pork-belly pay-offs like are so common now, and there should be massive accountability with the funds (hey, thats MY money you just blew up...).
With all of the money NASA has spent, there is NO reason we should have a station on the moon, entirely self-contained, solar powered (without an atmosphere the moon is a VERY efficient place for solar power and harvesting).
The moon is 20 percent metal, 20 percent silicon, and 60 percent oxygen (not in an atmospere). It is the perfect place for solar harvesting. The panels could even be made in factories on the moon. It would be zero polution, as electricity is free on the moon, all you can eat.
It should be done, and it should be done immediately. Such an effort on the moon would change life as we know it here on earth, and could eliminate fossil fuel needs by 2010...
Smart enough to be rich?