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

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

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday May 1, 2003 @10:36PM from the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet dept.

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."

8 of 357 comments (clear)

Metric Conversion by asciimonster · 2003-05-01 22:47 · Score: 5, Informative

For the non-US people in the world:

"Researchers at Holloman AFB have broken their own two decades old land speed record for rail vehicles. The rocket powered sled covered the 4.8 km track in roughly 6 seconds. Preliminary numbers put the sled's speed at mach 8.6 or about 10300 km/h - it covered the last 2.9 km in just 1.3 seconds. The previous record of 9851 km/h was set on Oct. 5, 1982. Other accounts are at the Alamogordo Daily News, the Denver Post, and CNN."

Maybe we should make a rule that say you always have to supply metric and imperial units... It would make my job so much easier...
1. Re:Metric Conversion by your_mother_sews_soc · 2003-05-02 00:54 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I'm sure we could take care of this using XML (or maybe not - I am ingorant in the area of XML). But if the W3C had included some "weights and measures" tags in the HTML standard then we could leave it up to the browser and/or client OS to apply localization rules and perform the proper conversions.
  
  Just a thought, but does anyone know of this was ever suggested?
  
  --
  My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
2. Re:Metric Conversion by 4of12 · 2003-05-02 01:19 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Damn straight.
  
  That's why I always quote my gasoline mileage in inverse acres.
  
  --
  "Provided by the management for your protection."
Re:Darwin award winner did it first? by trikberg · 2003-05-01 23:00 · Score: 5, Informative

That is an urban legend. This story started it. Or rather, the events portrayed in the story led to the urban legend; the story was written long after the urban legend started flourishing.

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This post is free (as in cheese in a mousetrap).
And in finacial news just in... by NewtonsLaw · 2003-05-01 23:14 · Score: 5, Funny

Shares in the Acme Novelty company have risen 23 percent.
Re:Driver not Available for Comment by black+mariah · 2003-05-01 23:38 · Score: 5, Informative

To give you a clue how high that is, Dave Purley survived a crash where he pulled 179 G's. He suffered 29 fractures, six dislocations, and six heart stoppages. It was the result of a near-instantaneous stop while hitting a wall at 108MPH (about 160kph, I think). IIRC, the Guinness book puts the time he sustained that g-force at a couple of thousandths of a second.

As another perspective, Top Fuel drivers in the NHRA cover a quarter of a mile in roughly 4.4 seconds, from a standing start, reaching speeds of over 320MPH. The 0-100 times are generally in the .10 second area. The max sustained g-force is about 7. If you've ever seen a dragster accelerate up close, you can extrapolate the violence yourself. :D

--
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Re:In Britain .. by BriSTO(V)L · 2003-05-02 00:13 · Score: 5, Funny

Are there even human beings "driving" it? No: My bet is on 6th generation space worms driving it...
OK, I'll say it by barzok · 2003-05-02 01:28 · Score: 5, Funny

6400 MPH should be enough for anyone.