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."

Comments

and we're sending *more* tech there..

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much of the technology has been stolen from US companies that were stupid enough to outsource there.

Hey, Indian laws don't stop that kind of thing and it's happened before. Never know....

Cold War in India heats up...

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

India is well aware that the stability of Pakistan's dictator Musharraf could collapse any day to the surge of Islamic fundamentalism in the country due to the exodus of the Taliban. In fact, he was almost assassinated last week.

Most of this is obviously meant for military technology. With a hypersonic scramjet, their military could not only call airstrike missile attacks within minutes, they would also have a de-facto ICBM on their hands that could travel so fast through space it would bypass the early warning systems. With it, they could launch a nuclear first strike on Pakistan and cripple their nuclear capabilities.

The Concorde was grounded because it was too dangerous, and a space plane would be infinitely moreso. This technology will be mostly for military use.

Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes

[CountBrass]

I agree that there is a fair comparison between the USA and India. Both are war-mongering Democracies.

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.

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.

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.

Re:Indian engineering

[Wansu]

My main point(!) is whether this creates risk. India has a foul history of conflict with its neighbour Pakistan, and fought a war with China in the 50s (though this, thankfully, seems to be a thing of the past).

Good. Let it create risk. Suits me fine if they nuke each other.

Re:Indian engineering

[nyteroot]

Haha. You almost came close to having a point. But its too bad you were too lazy to even read the fucking /. abstract. Because if you had, you would've noticed that India already has a cruise missile that beats the living shit out of anything the US has come up with yet. And even though it was developed in a joint venture between India and Russia, most of the actual new technology was developed by India. And India's space program has actually been going places: as you will see if you just search /. for news about the Indian space program, there are more have-done announcements than will-do ones, and it's at the point where many foreign companies use India to launch their satellites because India does it cheaper and better.

Now as to the point that the money would be better spent on education etc., I half-agree with you; but a burgeoning space program (and a good tech sector in general) draws lots of foreign investment, resulting in a net gain for India.

Honestly, you should watch that stray foot, it gets far too close to your mouth for comfort.

Re:Fall of Western civilization ?

[Moridineas]

*cough*Until about 100 years ago the US was way behind Europe in general and the UK in particular.

Way behind in what metric?