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India Plans Hypersonic Space Plane by 2007
MaximusTheGreat writes "While India has announced plans for a hypersonic plane (speeds greater than mach 5) before, this is the first time a firm date for test of an unmanned plane has been given. Final version of this plane called Aerobic Vehicle for Hypersonic Aerospace Transportation (AVATAR) is envisaged to deliver a 500 kg to 1,000 kg payload to low earth orbit. It will reduce the cost of space travel to a fraction to what it is today, by being completely reusable. Also, by allowing hypersonic speeds, it would for example reduce the travel time from Sydney, Australia to New York to less than 3 hrs. The crucial technology in the development of Hypersonic planes is supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet). India has already demonstrated the basic technology of ramjets by the development of world's fastest cruise missile Brahmos which outspeeds famous US Tomahawk by three times, and by ground tests of scramjets. US, Australia and Japan are also pursuing similar programs."
From the article: "Brahmos which outspeeds famous US Tomahawk by three times, and by ground tests of scramjets."
The Tomahawk cruise missile was intentionally made subsonic. The sound from a supersonic cruise missile with a range in exceess of 800 miles would negate much of the stealth aspect of the missile.
If you want to compare it to a US missile, compare it to some of our anti-ship or anti-air missiles.
You don't need to be a superpower to experiment in this area. The University of Queensland here in Oz has the HyShot program which, despite a few teething problems, is producing world class results. The US has yet to see any results from its X-43 series. It will be interesting to see if India can live up to its own hype. Good luck to them.
I don't understand why everytime India advances technologically, people immediately think "oh they have nuclear weapons". The United States has Nuclear weapons and continues to develop and is the *only* country to ever have used them in war - and it is very debatable whether they needed to - definitely, not the second bomb.
Anyway, I digress - the point I am trying to make, why don't we see this as it is - other countries (besides the US, Germany, UK, France) are also trying to develop advanced avaition and technological capabilities. This is going to happen more often now.
Of all the countries in the world, the last one we have to worry in as far as using nuclear weapons is India. It is so completely against the basic pysche of the country. Clearly, nukes are a deterrant to all the hostile neighbors India has. India lives in a very tough neighborhood bordering Pakistan and China, with Afghanistan only a hundred miles from the border. They have to develop nukes to keep the enemies at bay.
Again, I digress - bottom line: please don't think nukes everytime India develops new space, missile etc technology.
More so than the US it seems. With NASA pulling the funding on every new shuttle replacement just before it starts working and our commercial aerospace industry relegated to Boeing, who seemingly can't compete on a level playing field, it seem slike all the exciting advancements are going to happen in China and India.
I think you can not read.
I said BASIC medical care. You can walk into almost any hospital in the USA and almost any clinic and get access to BASIC medical care.
The same can not be said of India.
And where in the USA is there a major problem getting clean running water?
Probably because India and Pakistan appeared to be very close to going to war fairly recently, and there are sufficiently advanced weapons on both sides to make people nervous.
:-)
Even if you assume that India will never use thier nukes, won't an increase in power on thier part make thier neighbors feel that they need to increase thier military power as well?
On the other hand, cheap space travel is really cool no matter who is developing it..
Twenties Retirement
Why ?
I regularly donate cash to charities to drill wells in India and other such poverty relief measures - and yet their government spends a ton of cash on nuclear weapons and prestige projects.
Time to redirect my charity I think.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Regarding those missles, yes, India's missle is indeed faster, but the article states that it has a range of only 280km. That, compared to the American Tomahawk of anywhere between 1100km to 2500km, is just a drop in the bucket. The article states that had India been able to fire off some missles at the same time as the Americans that their chances of getting Bin Laden would have been greater. The problem is with a range of only 280km, they'd have to get pretty close to or within the country. With the Tomahawks extremely long range, the American's can fire from the Ocean without taking any land. Although its slower, the fact that it has between 4 and 9 times the range of the BrahMos, the Tomahawk would realistically 'get there sooner' because of its longer firing range in a real world situation.
Oh yes, I'm not American, I'm Canadian. This is an objective perspective.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Actually, not true. It has poverty but that shouldn't stop any country from the pursuit of progress. Research like this will bring more wealth if it materializes into a saleable priduct, which in turn will solve poverty issues in the long run. Its actually a faster route to prosperity.
Pray explain what noise would make it audible before it physicaly arrives.
It's Supersonic i.e, faster than sound!!
The fact that the bang might be heard and the news radioed ahead is rather trivial as cruise missiles don't need to follow a straight line of attack.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I would agree with some of your points, but this almost reads like a troll given some blazing factual errors.
Blocking advancement in 3rd world countries by covering every rubbish with patents.
Patents currently work on a per-country basis. The Chinese can develop whatever they like under their own system. If Western civilization does crumble, as you predict, then China won't be interested in selling to the US so much anymore, but to its own citizens and neighbours, whose patents will be different to those of the US.
The military advantage is already gone in thecase of e.g. France or UK or is already decreasing like e.g. US and Germany.
Germany has a weak military compared to both the UK and France. I'm not sure where you're getting your statistics from. You're also confusing military power with power in general. Israel has a very powerful army by international standards, but they're hardly a superpower in any sense.
You have also missed that the UK (and the US, to a point) holds an advantage over its European peers by being the world's largest creditor, raking in billions from ever growing third world debt.
I do not see the gloom and doom you seem to, however. I think the development of the second and third worlds will improve the world as a whole, even if it puts a little dent into our own standard of living. As a supplier, myself, I'll take a dip in my standard of living if it means I can have the whole world as a giant marketplace, rather than just the US and Europe.
Actually, having been in the aerospace field and now the computer field, I'd say the real factor is 'risk'. US business will drop anything that 'might' fail. So (in the rocket business) the factors of safety are often bumped up to 8 or 10 on unmanned boosters. The test motors never fail. Young engineers never learn from failure. They never learn what is engineered failure or simply manufacturing defect. For boosters lofting extra insulating material costs money and lowers payload.
You see the spiral.
The same thing is happening in IT. Projects are swamped in this CMM crap and piles and piles of 'design documents' to the point that NO CODE IS WRITTEN. When the customer gets a program that doesn't work they don't give a rats ass about CMM PAPERWORK. CMM is being used as a bludgeon by Boeing and Lockheed to beat down the 8a shops that can't afford it.
The Indians and Chinese will accept higher risk and most importantly LEARN FROM FAILURE, where the optimization boundaries lie.
The US has become risk averse.
JoeR
former Castor IVA engineer
current Linux Advocate
Read the article:
It scoops oxygen in the atmosphers at hypersonic speeds, and then oes into space.
Nervous people with nuclear weapons make me nervous :(
*cough*Until about 100 years ago the US was way behind Europe in general and the UK in particular.
Countries catching up is perfectly normal. In any case - what makes you so special ? Is there something you did that makes you deserve to be "ahead' of Indians, Chinese, whatever ? Or was that just an accident of birth ?
Personally I look forward to the day the whole world is without poverty and want. And there isn't one dominating military super-power.
Zero sum gain (to win someone else has to lose) as an economic theory was discredited a long, long time ago.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
So we can't condemn the slave trade, either, because the world was a different place? The Allies committed many atrocities in the second world war, of which the use of nuclear weapons was one.
Because something travelling at Mach 5 max will never reach escape velocity. So this thing is suborbital at best.
Not to mention scramjets only work from Mach 2 or thereabouts, so you need an alternative engine to speed the plane up to Mach 2, then you use the scramjet to go up to Mach 5. Plus there is the additional problem that liquid hydrogen is low density, cryogenic fuel.
The main use for such technology is a high-speed intercontinental bomber or reconnaissance platform. Not space launch. So far no other engine beats rockets for cost/efficiency when doing space launches.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Bollocks, there is no free access to basic medical care for all the population in the US. This would be a remarkable step forward for the US but it's not going to happen.
Europe is somewhat different. Western Europe is very much a post-modern society, whose power is economic and diplomatic (and in those areas FAR exceeds the US's power). And has little interest in Imperialism of any kind.
Ok, first of all--Europe is a post-modern society?? What the hell does that mean?!
Not interested in Imperialism? Really? Tell that to the French neo-colonies in West Africa. I wish I still had the link, I saw a great picture after France unilaterally sent troops in Cote d'Ivoire of Ivoirians holding up signs saying "Bush! Save us from the French!" Better yet, tell that to all the struggling 3rd world farmers who are oppressed by subsidized European agricultural goods. Economic imperialism at its finest!
You think European economic and diplomatic power far exceeds the US? Well, the economic point is so laughable as to not even deserve refutation, and the I'll refute the second below!
Also, show me some European led international diplomacy that has gone succesfully without US participation? They've certainly managed to do a bang up job in the middle east! Who is spear heading peace in the Middle East right now? The US. Who was responsible for peace between Israel and Egypt. Largely the US! Who is responsible for Libya opening? The US! Who is responsible for recent NK negotiations? The US. Show me ANY comparable European led initiatives.
Which is strange as the US just over a 100 years ago also lacked imperial ambition - but then post WW2 took serveral major steps backwards (imo): Vietnam, Panama, Iraq 2003.
Inaccurate representation of American history--you need to go much farther back. Hell, start looking back to the 1840's if you want to see American imperialism in its nascent form. You absolutely cannot say that American imperialism starts post-ww2. I can list examples if you don't know them, or are interested, just reply, I'd be glad to.
So personally I'm relaxed about West European countries (and I include Canada, Australia and New Zealand in that group as culturally they are) having nukes. The US, India and Pakistan owning nukes however scares the crap out of me.
If you're European all I can say is, WW2 would have been much nicer had the US not joined the European front, and had the US not nuked Japan. Things would have been rosy and happy all around! And since then, America's nuclear atrocities are absolutely unforgivable. Your post is truly insightful!
the US just over a 100 years ago also lacked imperial ambition - but then post WW2 took serveral major steps backwards (imo): Vietnam, Panama, Iraq 2003.
Some would argue that American imperial ambition began with the Declaration of Independence, and continued throughout the Western expansion -- that every square inch of what is today America was taken by force.
Even a less sanguine historian -- say, Mark Twain -- would agree that American imperialism was obvious by the time of the Phillipine war.
-kgj
-kgj
The Indians and Chinese will accept higher risk
i think the indians and chinese are as capable of incompetence and boneheadedness as we are.
it is just a matter of their stage of development.
give them enough time and their brilliant engineers and scientists will be just as under the thumb of PHBs and lawyers as ours are.
Why because democracies with judeo-christian roots are known not to use them?
Or because democracies with judeo-christion roots are known never to start a war?
Please go check some history (even recent events) and come back.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I don't know where you got that "fact", but it's far from true. I believe South Korea holds that distinction (most number of doctorates per capita), with Seoul being the city with the densest PhD population. New Zealand is another country which ranks high in that statistic. I wouldn't be surprised if India was nowhere in the top 50, given the billion+ population and the low literacy rate. Oh, I'd try and preview posts if I were you - it's hard to take someone who spells plane "plain" and per capita with an 'l'.
"The slave who knows his master's will and does not get ready...will be be beaten with many blows."Luke 12:47-48
What about the major gender imbalace that is developing in your country? You know the one that is happending because your highly developed civilization places such little importance on girls that it is ok (wink, wink) to kill them.
Sure. The rich in India are better off than the poor in the US. Now, for a fair comparison, contrast the poorest/middle/richest in both countries.
(A)erobic (V)ehicle for (H)ypersonic (A)erospace (T)ransportation == AVATAR?
/. tradition, I've not yet read the article... I'm satisfied with just making fun of the summary. :)
To what extent are we allowed to arbitrarily select letters to form a cool acronym?
Maybe they felt that AVHAT was a little too close to "asshat"?
On the other hand, since "avatar" is derived from Sanskrit and can mean "the incarnation of a Hindu deity, especially Vishnu, in human or animal form"... and since Vishnu is the "protector and preserver of worlds", perhaps AVATAR is meaningful symbolically rather than acronymically (is that a word?... didn't think so).
Of course, in
>> 50 years of histor, 3 wars.
Nice score compared to that of the US and of its friend China.
>> Pakistan 1947-48.
This war caused mostly because there was no agreement on where the border was supposed to be and the British had left the country to itself when they saw things were heating up. By the way, the English had fed the enemity between the Hindu and the Muslim communities to reduce Gandhi's influence. That didn't stop the independence, but caused a lot of suffering to both the Indian and the Pakistani population.
>> 1965
A sequel of the previous Kashmir war. It was Pakistan that shot first.
>> 1971
India helped Bangladesh to declare its independence from Pakistan. That was very kind because the Pakistani dictators were killing people there at large to suffocate the autonomists. The Bengalis wanted independence because they felt exploited and abandoned by the Islamabad government. BTW, they are forever thankful to the Indians.
You forgot to mention that:
* Gandhi's plans to lead india to independence were peaceful and tolerant, it was the Muslin League's fault (with English support under cover) that it didn't work. His plans were to make the entire Indian subcontinent a lay and democratic state where all of India's religions (hinduism, islamism, jainism, buddhism, and christianism) would live together.
* There aren't hindus living in Pakistan, but there are muslims living in India (What do you think this mean?)
* India is indeed tolerant. Hindu fundamentalism is relatively recent and has more to to with right-wing politics than with religion itself. Also, fundamentalists are reacting because they think they are threatened by the aggressive islamic fundamentalism (that's no excuese, I Know, but it does explain).
* You forgot to meention Chinese aggression against India in 1962 trying to seize the whole of Kashmir (India was defeated, but managed to keep most of the land leaving only a small portion [Azad kashmir] to the Chinese). It was then that they decided to start developing weapons so that they wouldn't become another Mexico.
And remind that:
* India insist that Pakistan is behind the terrorism it is striken by.
* And that the country is the world's biggest democracy (in spite of its problems) while the American friend Pakistan is a tyranny of the worst kind.
* It is surrounded by countries who are tyrannies (Pakistan, Burma and China), all of them former aggressors recently (Pakistan and China) or in the past (Burma, Afghanistan).
* They live in a dirty place, so they can't always play clean.
I know one shouldn't believe uncritically what one reads in the papers, but in a recent piece discussing the display of the "Enola Gay" the topic of the necessity of the use of the bombs was brought up.
... :(
According to the article, there is evidence showing that at the time the bombs were dropped, Japan was communicating with Russia with the aim of having Russia act as an intermediary in negotiating a peace in the US. Further, the USA knew of this.
At that point in time, Japan was in a very poor position, running low on resources and having its cities severely bombed conventionally. Again, according to the article, provided that the terms of a peace would allow them to keep the Emperor, Japan was all too willing to surrender.
The choice wasn't between using atomic bombs or a land invasion. Given this situation, a land invasion, along with the concommitant loss of life, would have been simply unnecessary.
Note also: even if there had been a land invasion, the lives lost would have been chiefly confined to those in the armed forces of the two nations (note also that this figure as estimated today would have been similar to or less than the 160000 casualties of the Hiroshima bombing.) Dropping an atomic bomb on a city of course kills mainly civilians. Whether this is significant or not depends on your attitudes towards war.
PS: For comparison, the firebombing of Tokyo is said to have killed about 80000 to 100000 people. The firebombing of Dresden, between 25000 and 150000. With such attrocities it demonstrates that the actions of the victors in WWII were in the end no better than that of their foes, as regards the deliberate targetting of civilian populations. I guess you can always point a finger at the Germany and say 'they started it'
Oh, that's such a load of crap. In Japan, even the civilians were military targets. The Japanese were instructed to fight to the last man, with pointy sticks if necessary, and we're talking about an invasion of their homeland. If we were talking about a similar invasion of the United States, you can bet every redneck in the country would be using his/her 2nd amendment rights in a fight to the last, to beat off the reds or whatever the enemy of the day was. The fighting in Okinawa was the fiercest battle of the Pacific War. Projections from that actual battle, and not the estimates of armchair generals playing alternate history, clearly showed that an invasion of the mainland would have horrific costs. In fact, the estimates would probably end up being low, if past events were any judge.
Not interested in Imperialism? Really? Tell that to the French neo-colonies in West Africa. I wish I still had the link, I saw a great picture after France unilaterally sent troops in Cote d'Ivoire of Ivoirians holding up signs saying "Bush! Save us from the French!"
Like others have pointed out, such pictures can be misleading. How do you know the people asking for Bush's "protection" weren't supporters of one or the other faction in the civil war?
You think European economic and diplomatic power far exceeds the US? Well, the economic point is so laughable as to not even deserve refutation.
Actually, the EU's total GDP as of 1999 was about the same as that of the US; once EU enlargement takes place this year, with the accession of Poland, Hungary et. al., the EU's GDP will actually be larger than that of the US (though per capita GDP will be rather lower). Many member states export proportionally far more than the US as well -- such as Germany, for example.
Furthermore, the Euro has succeeded in becoming the largest reserve currency after the US dollar, and continues to grow in usage (one reason for the dollar's decline in value recently -- many countries are partially switching reserves to Euros to spread out their risks).
Oh, and half of the G8 are in the EU -- France, the UK, Germany and Italy.
The EU's economic influence is thus hardly "laughable" at all...
As for European diplomacy succeeding with or without American participation, one can quite easily turn your statement on its head and point out that American diplomacy doesn't work in a vacuum -- American initiatives tend to work far, far better when the Europeans are on board. Think of it as the "good cop, bad cop" routine. Worked brilliantly in Iran recently, as the Iranians agreed top open up to the IAEA (after intense consultations with EU members as well as having American troops on its borders).
A final point about 'European' diplomacy: don't forget that the EU is really just a collection of nation-states, and can only act as a unit in nearly all cases when a consensus amongst those states has been reached.
In that light, to blame "Europe" for diplomatic weakness is misguided: the EU is weak, but its individual members still have quite a lot of influence abroad -- far, far more than other countries of similar size. France, Spain and the UK all punch far above their weight, and Germany is also taking an ever higher profile in recent years.
No offense intended, but such blinkered remarks are why many non-Americans get so exasperated with us -- factually wrong (or iffy) boasts, filled with misinformed chest-pounding about our supposed achievements and so on. We as Americans do have much to be proud of, but that doesn't mean we need to overdo it -- nor does it mean we need to rub everyone else's faces in it (especially not when we claim too much credit). Not a good way to make friends and keep them.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
"No better"? As someone living in Germany (and married to a German), I can hardly tell you how wrong you are. Where to begin?
America and Britain did not seek to exterminate an entire people (and nearly succeed) as the Nazis did, or summarily rape and pillage and entire city, as the Japanese did,
America and Britain did not do human wave attacks, unlike the Soviets.
America and Britain did not, as a matter of policy, summarily execute prisoners of war, as did the Soviets, Japan and the Nazis.
America and Britain did not impose dictatorships wholesale on the countries they occupied, unlike the Soviets, Nazis and Japan. Indeed, most countries the US and UK occupied got liberal democracies and independence.
Indeed, America even rebuilt its defeated enemies, gave them liberal democracies, gave them huge amounts of money and aid, defended them from the Soviets through the Cold War...need I go on?
To make the statement that America was "no better" than the Nazis, Imperial Japan or Stalinist Russia is just completely out of touch with basic facts. Yes, America and Britain did commit many crimes, like the internment of Japanese-Americans and dropping the atom bomb on civilians and firebombing German cities and so on. But on balance I'd still much rather have a world where America and the UK won, as opposed to one where the Soviets or (shudder) Nazis won, thankyouverymuch.
And given that I live in a city which was flattened by Bomber Harris, and which has Hiroshima as a partner city, I can tell you that the "defeated" Germans were in the end just as much 'winners' in the end as us Americans -- and they know it, and won't forget it easily. That's why Germany still commemorates the Berlin Airlift, Kennedy's "Berliner" speech (no, he did not say he was a jelly donut), the Marshall Plan and so on.
America little better than the Nazis? Today's Germans -- at least all the Germans I know -- would say America's a hell of a lot better.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
I am so tired of this far too frequent "argument".
European: "I think X is true, because of Y".
American: "We saved your ass in WW2. Therefore X is false. QED."
Am I the only person in America who can spot the logical error in this exchange??