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Land Speed Record Broken: 0-6,400 in Six Seconds

linuxwrangler writes "Researchers at Holloman AFB have broken their own two decades old land speed record for rail vehicles. The rocket powered sled covered the 3 mile track in roughly 6 seconds. Preliminary numbers put the sled's speed at mach 8.6 or about 6,400 mph - it covered the last 1.8 miles in just 1.3 seconds. The previous record of 6,122 mph was set on Oct. 5, 1982. Other accounts are at the Alamogordo Daily News, the Denver Post, and CNN."

7 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. Well Rounded Education by Michael's+a+Jerk! · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hi,

    I'm concerned about the narrowm view of the world 'hard' science
    students have these days. I think the problem starts at college -
    There's a culture that somehow science is more rational and usefull
    then the humanitities. Lecturers encourage students to joke about arts
    students, and humilaite them whenever possible. This encourages
    eliteism, and I for one am sick of it.

    Let's tell it like it is. 'science' is just as much about opinion as
    the humanities. Research simply follows the fad of the day. Take
    dieticians for example. These men and woman believe that just because
    they have degree in medical science that they are all knowing. Why,
    what they recommend one day may kill you the next! (see the DDT story
    for more information.) Science is 95% opinion then facts, lets face
    it. What about astrology, the most rediculious of the sciences! But I
    degress...

    Another example is music. We know what sounds good. Everyone aggreed
    that Valves for instance sound great. But knowitall engineers use
    trensastors with inferious sound quality just to save a few bucks.
    They argue with numbers. Hey, I don't want to do maths just to listen
    to music. I know what I like. You cannot apply objective reasoning to
    a subject which is intristically subjective. But try telling those
    recent grads with their useless piece of paper that and they go all
    mightier--then-thou.

    The problem with you technical guys are that you are all so eliteist.
    Whilst you want to trun collage into a trade school with yore narrow
    minded views that collage should be a job training centre, humanities
    are focused on making you a well rounded person who is auctually
    interesting to be with, not a boring focuesed geek. Really, it makes
    me so mad when people say "oh, he's doing a humanities degree, that's
    easy". I have to read *3* *books* *a* *week* on average. Not picture
    books either I assue you. It is a lot of work, but the upshot is
    improved grammer and spelling skills that are lacking in the
    technical. As for those that say "you will be working at mcdonalds" ,
    I'm going on to so a PhD in socialolgy where I'll be line for tenure
    where I have a much more rewarding job then beeing a science freak or
    an engineer. Anyways, all I have to do to be a engineer wold be to get
    my MSCE and how hard couyld that be? techincal stuff is simply
    whatever fad the market thinks is hot at the moment, but all great
    things were done by humanities.

    You technical types are far to narrow minded and cynsical. You should
    learn to enjoy life.

    Peace be to god, he transcends all.

    --

    I'm not Seth.

    1. Re:Well Rounded Education by dduardo · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Ok, i'll bite. First off, you can't even spell the acronym correctly. It's MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) Secondly, about every 2 year old can get one.

    2. Re:Well Rounded Education by black+mariah · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Tube amps haven't been abandoned at all, they just went upscale. All the high-grade 'audiophile' bullshit is tube. Guitar amps are still mostly tube. Basically, the only problem is that morons like you call them 'valves'. Damn Brits. ;)

      Yes, that was a joke.

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
  2. meep-meep by heymjo · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    first post!

  3. Re:In Britain .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Imagine trying to walk down the train with a plastic cup of hot coffee at 6400mph!!

  4. In soviet russia by CrazyJim0 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Guess.

  5. Oh no by stalinvlad · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    There I was thinking:-"Blimey news NOT about another Linux Distro/*BSD release" and it turned into that dream I had about Charles the First crossing the Atlantic just at the outbreak of the civil war and becoming the first King Of America (Then follows 3 sets of 26 episode TV stuff, you know bearded blokes plotting evil deeds and speaking about...)

    What was I on about ?

    Oh yeah that otherthing METRIC