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Second Test of X-43A Scramjet Tomorrow
pinkUZI writes "NASA says its new Hyper-X, a jet capable of flying some 5,000mph - seven times the speed of sound - will be ready to take a test cruise across the Pacific this Saturday. This is actually NASA's second attempt; the first, in 2001, failed when stabilizing fins flew off the plane's booster rocket and controllers ordered the craft destroyed. CNN has the story." NASA's mission web page has more information, photos, etc.
Is this where someone is supposed to make a reference to the urban legend about someone attaching a jet engine to their car and crashing into the side of a mountain? You know, the one where they say that they only found a few teeth and fingernails embedded in the dashboard.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/2 5/141238&mode=nested&tid=134&tid=160
the b-52 to launch the plane. Will they be able to develop on of there that can take off on its own? or will we always be launching them from the underbellies of a big plane.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Why are you posting AGAIN ??? and on the same subject?
Da-dum-ching!
Gordon D. Pusch wrote in sci.space.tech: "Hypersonic travel combines all the disadvantages of airplanes with all the disadvantages of rocket flight and all the disadvantages of re-entry --- continuously."
The article starts off with this:
The space agency's dogged pursuit of extreme speed, officials hope, will ultimately make space flight easier to accomplish.
OK, so exactly how is this supposed to aid space flight efforts? There is no mention made of that in the article at all.
I would have thought that the ability to reach incredible speeds in horizontal flight inside the atmosphere is unrelated to both:
1) Entering orbit (horizontal flight).
2) Flying in vaccum (different conditions than in atmosphere).
I'm confused ... any thoughts?
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
They're not (directly) working on cruise missiles, although the tech could be used for that. They're trying to invent a cheaper way to get to orbit. This is just a test bed to figure out the scram jet. The plan is for a standard jet engine to get you to supersonic speeds, the scram jet to get you to hypersonic speeds and the edge of the atmosphere. Once you're going, say, Mach 7 and most of the atmosphere is below you, you fire the rocket engine to get you the rest of the way to orbit. This approach wouldn't require the rocket to carry as much oxydizer, thus less weight, less cost.
Aren't there laws governing mach speeds over populated areas?
They're testing it over the pacific ocean.
Yes, you would hear the sonic boom of the test flight. (If you are close enough to hear it at all, of course).
At supersonic speeds, the edge of the soundwaves that are produced by an object is a cone in the object's inertial frame. Regardless of the speed. The speed only changes the angle of this cone..
Let us strap a human to it and sing "The Rocket Man"!
Just curious?
The only possible use I can think of is hyper-range weapons. Ground-controlled planes armed with lethal cargo (nuclear or not) could be flown around the globe faster than any ICBM, and guided with better accuracy.
I'm all for "Science for Science's sake" but I think this is worthless for any practical purposes.
from the dupes-of-dupes dept.
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
Slight off-topic, but why do I have to go to Jet Propulsion Laboratory to find out about the Mars rovers, and then I have to go to National Aeronautics and Space Administration to find out about fancy new jet engines?!
Is it a cunning plan to out-fox those secret stealing ruskies?
I hope they took the time to invent inertial dampeners like they have on Star Trek. I'd hate to see what mach-7 does to the pilot...
in your sig?
I am more curious as to how loud it'll sound... 7 times the normal boom? Havent read much about mach-speeds...
The danger here is that the darn thing will carry all of these systems and have no capacity left over for payload. I recall the Boeing SST back in the late 60's early 70's was based on a swing wing concept. The scale of the mechanical systems to swing the large wing faced them with a difficult choice of a swing wing or passengers...but not both.
In the physics world one has a sense that they are on to something when the math becomes elegant and simple...I think in the "no moving parts" nature of the scram jet are appealing...a turbofan/scram/rocket combination is not
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
I've mostly forgotten almost all my physics, so could someone please answer a question for me?
Why do you need to be going 25,000 mph to get away from the Earth?
I can jump into the air and get away from the Earth, for a couple seconds anyway, and I'm not going nearly that fast.
I thought as you got farther away from a body, the gravitational pull decreases using some inverse-square rule.
As long as you can get airborne and are able to keep moving upwards, why doesn't it become easier to keep going the higher your altitude?
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
But if the earth's circumference is around 25,000 miles, and this jet can go 5,000 miles an hour, that would mean it would take only 2.5 hours to get from any location to any other.
Okay, if it only takes 2.5 hours at top speed to go anywhere on the planet, how much time is spent accelerating and decelerating versus actually flying at Mach 10? And how much fuel are you burning in the process? I remember working at LaRC when they were just starting to test scramjets and I still think the science is good for orbit, but bad for commercial applications.
Almost as interesting as the X programs is the B-52 mothership that launches them. There was an Air & Space article years ago (no online version at airspacemag.com) about it.
It's an aging early-model B-52B, evidenced by the non-pointy nose and is 49 years old. There are virtually no spare parts remaining for it, and most of the current inventory (Gs, Hs) don't have any parts commonality.
Plus, we never sold any of them to other countries, so it's not like there's a stockpile somplace else on the globe. The cost to replace it is prohibitive, given the structural reinforcements needed to carry the craft aloft. Also, the airframe is very young from an hours perspective. In fact, it's the lowest hour B-52 in the inventory.
The USAF has loaned an H-model to NASA to become the next generation launch platform, but I haven't heard much about it since the 2001 announcement.
It's a supremely important beast in the research arsenal. And, given our penchant for resurrecting C-64s as web servers and using mame to emulate decades-old cabinet games, it seems like the sort of thing that would interest the average computer geek.
Like so many things, it's the logistical details of maintaining an archaic aircraft against all odds (and lack of funding) that really become the story rather than the whizz-bang doodad that always gets the front page pictures.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
For those who want to know what a scramjet is, and how it works, check this page.
A ramjet has no moving parts and achieves compression of intake air by the forward speed of the air vehicle. Air entering the intake of a supersonic aircraft is slowed by aerodynamic diffusion created by the inlet and diffuser to velocities comparable to those in a turbojet augmentor. The expansion of hot gases after fuel injection and combustion accelerates the exhaust air to a velocity higher than that at the inlet and creates positive push.
Scramjet is an acronym for Supersonic Combustion Ramjet. The scramjet differs from the ramjet in that combustion takes place at supersonic air velocities through the engine. It is mechanically simple, but vastly more complex aerodynamically than a jet engine. Hydrogen is normally the fuel used.
This is all very different from conventional airliner engines, which are a gas turbine/fan nacelle called a "turbofan". (A "turboprop" is a gas turbine driving a propeller instead of a fan, BTW.)
Let's assume for a moment here that I'm not Buckaroo Banzai and I'm a little bit vague on what the upper limit has been for manned flight (or travel in any medium, salt-plain automobiles or whatever). "Mach seven" really doesn't sound all that impressive. THIS IS 2004! We should be on mach ten-hundred by now.
For Christ's-sake, in that episode of ST:TNG where Riker had salt-and-peper hair and he didn't play trombone, I clearly heard him say: "WARP THIRTEEN! ENGAGE!" What the hell mach was Tom Cruise going before he entered into coitus with that blonde? What is the top theoretical speed of the current US fighter/and or/stealth aircraft?
What are the records here, that my tax-dollars are allegedly breaking?
Don't mod this retarded shit up, this is the uninformed wanting to become informed.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
What have I DONE!?!?! MY BRAINS ARE GOING INTO MY FEEEET!!!
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
It will be a spectacular failure :-(
Yes, same story, same "editor". Welcome to Slashdot. Please pick up a gift bag from the table on the right.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
We don't need anything beyond a stick. Of course, there will be treacherous governments that equip their armies with the much more advanced board-with-nail-in-it. Violating all sorts of treaties with their sophisticated military might.
Machine9dotNet
And, of course thise technology will be used for war. There's never been a technology that hasn't been used for war. Even the simple wheel enabled some nasty engines of destruction. Does this mean that we should not have technology?
Just ask Ted Kazinski.
Thank god, finally a tech that won't leave me in a plane for 12 hours while travelling overseas without a cigarette! Yippy!
Mostly I agree, but your first question starts with an incorrect assumption: a 600mph vertical dive. Pilots are trained at ditching an airplane at sea, and planes do float for a short time after this happens. In fact (though I don't know of any specific cases off hand) it has happened before, and many passangers have survived ditching at sea. Vertical dives do not happen in a significant amount of emergency situations, wings are simple devices and don't break all that often, and a wing is all you need to prevent a vertical dive.
Airplanes have backup batteries, and backup radios. You can be sure that before the plane hits the water emergency people know that it is going down, and about where. They might not be able to get to you in time to save you, but they at least know where to look just in case.
I'd prefer to float around the North Atlantic than die. Though I think it is safe to assume that if it really is several days before rescure workers find you they will find a dead body. However depending on where the crash happens, rescure workers may find you sooner.
Mach = Speed of Sound, but speed of sound changes depending on air density/pressure (altitude), temperature, and absolute humidity.
When someone says Mach 7, is that at sea level and STP (standard temperature and pressure {1 atm, 25C)) or is that at the altitude and conditions of the air through which the craft is flying (e.g. 30,000 ft, -25C)?
yep
"You're toast", as you've aptly pointed out.
:)
There's not alot that can be done when your tail section blows out due to improper riveting. You can't do anything but pray and land when the top of the aircraft peels open like a sardine can due to a bad joint that allows a crack to propogate the length of the plane.
And you know what? People still die falling down a flight of stairs.
It doesn't matter how fast you go, how close to the ground you are.
Now you do have good points about wing shock, but, those speeds are air that is no longer as dense, thus the forces exerted are much less and probably very close to equivelant as what's seen now adays.
I think I'd like to be able to go from NYC to London in 2 hrs. Especially if it works out to be cheaper.... I could go get my warm beer and be back before the night is out
Seven times the speed of sound? How does that compare to the Millenium Falcon going at hyperspeed?
My sister Caity died of cancer at 11 years old a couple years ago..
Caity was out in California for proton radiation treatment, Joel (uncle in law / NASA engineer) held a party for his Engineering Section at his house and Caity drew a picture of the X43 plane's logo on the sidewalk in chalk.
After Caity passed Joel took the picture of her sidewalk drawing and went to Nasa to have the plane named in Caity's honor and have her picture on the side of the plane.
I hope this one does a lot better than the last time, it has a lot of sentimental value!
Mountain Dew and doughnuts, because breakfast is the most important meal of the day!
I already posted this in another discussion here, but probably it is worth mentioning again. The bigger cousin of X-43A, X-43C, is being cancelled because it does not fit in the new space plans.
The article claims travel benefits, going from New York to London in 2 hours. But honestly, travelling that fast, if anything went wrong you're toast.
I imagine this is almost exactly what was claimed when the combustion engine was being developed..
Just think about it:
The inventors claim travel benefits, going from New York to Bostin in 3 hours. But honestly, travelling that fast, if anything went wrong you're toast.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Maybe since Sci-fi authors started using the normal system NASA felt they needed to distence themselves from the logical way of doing things so as to gain/keep credibility?
I don't have time to comment my code, the program is late already.
they keep putting this on OSC's Pegasus XL vehicles. The first Pegasus rockets were painted black, but they had to change them to white because it was too hard to recover the black ones from the ocean floor.
Does anyone have direct experience with the Hyper-X project? An undergraduate physics cohort of mine spent some time at Langley doing research with the project team and at that point (~5 years ago) there were significant problems with the engine itself (such as the airspeed differential at the intake of the engine). The article doesn't comment on what steps have been taken to correct these issues and to warrant a test of the engine?
JGG
So searching for wreckage and humans after a crash will cover many hundreds of miles? Brought to you by the lowest common bidder, your tax dollars at work. What idiot made price over quality a government mandate?
Sure NASA will build the test models right at some point, who will make the commercial jets properly with all of the price wars going on? Where will they be allowed to fly? The Concode wasn't even allowed to fly at full speed in many areas, nonless even take-off or land.
I'd rather take my chances on the Paris railline...
Hasn't Aurora been going faster than this for almost fifteen years now?
Nevermind that no one officially knows about it or has even gotten a decent picture...
my mind wonders to the Actual math/engineering that it would take to evaluate this solution to beyond just the 'X-Prize'.
instead of a bomb, think of some type of manufacturing process that uses micro gravity, and vaccum. or the retrieval process of space objects.
were the hell is McGiver when we need him?
I like this quote from the Mission Information - 'No vehicle has ever flown at hypersonic speeds powered by an air-breathing scramjet engine.'
.... Russia? Didn't even Australia get something flying?
:).
Aren't they forgetting a few other countries here - India
Maybe they haven't technically flown a _vehicle_, and maybe I'm slightly mistaken here, but I find it almost typical of NASA to so completely ignore these other countries who in this case actually got there first and are possibly (?) more advanced than NASA in this area.
Of course if your world view is limited to America and the occassional country it chooses to bomb, then the statement is in its way correct
Spacecraft and satellites don't *escape* the earth's gravity. They just reach high enough speeds such that for every meter they fall toward the earth, they've gained a meter in altitude by traveling forward along the curve of the earth. If you're going faster than orbital velocity, you'll leave the Earth, if you're going slower, you'll spiral inward until you crash.
To further clarify, when you're on the ISS or Space Shuttle, you're not exactly in zero gravity. You're constantly free-falling towards Earth. Anything that's not traveling fast enough along the curve of the earth outside of the atmosphere will fall back down rather fast.
Seems they at least have funding left for a test flight, which is good.
This is only the first test of the technology. The scramjet concept has been around a long time, and they have tested them in wind tunnels before, but no one has ever actually flown one yet. Future models WILL go mach 10, but this one wont. Baby technologies take baby steps.
...don't forget to give George Carlin credit when using his material (one of the best shows he ever did, BTW).
Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies... Neil Peart
On the other hand, while a rocket needs to carry its own propellant, the scramjet uses atmospheric air. It is therefore much more efficient, and for a given size and weight constraint, one could build a scramjet powered vehicle that could have some combination of greater speed and range over conventional rocket propelled vehicles.
For the military, this means that you could probably pack a Mach 10, six hundred mile range missile into a SM-II launcher. Then every destroyer and cruiser in the Navy would be able to carry dozens of missiles that can hit targets six hundred miles away within six minutes of launch. Once it gets there, its warhead, traveling at Mach 10, will have several times the destructive power of a warhead on a cruise missile, which travels at just below Mach 1.
The characteristics of a scramjet powered missile would allow the military to attack deeply burried bunkers and highly mobile targets with cruise missiles launched from hundreds of miles away. It's a military wet dream.
Globalsecurity.org, as always, has a nice write-up.
Because, if the worst comes to the worst you can do the DiCaprio, and choose to let go.
Hey, I didn't see that movie!
from the once-the-rockets-go-up-who-cares-where-they-come-d own dept.
"That's not my department," said Wernher von Braun.
i am a soviet space shuttle
You have Einstein, we have Newton
...
You have Neumann, we have Turing
You have Salk, we have Fleming
Good books you say? You have Shatner, we have Shakespeare
Like everything else the govt pays for... its an offensive weapon. take a look at the calculations
((1 / 2) * (1 000 kg)) * ((7 000 mph)^2) = 4.89619666 x 10^09 Joules
a 20 kiloton bomb is ~10^13 joules...
What these means is... if they can put these engines on largers chunks of mass (i.e. increase the mass of the object flying at 7 times the speed of sound). They could have a bomb, with the explosive power of an atomic weapon... without using atomic methods. There is no need to strap a atomic warhead to this missle.... the missile is the warhead. And the best thing is... you would never hear it coming (radar wouldnt give you enough time to react (bleep bleep boom)).
Jon Bardin
I'm curious about that stock photo. "Balls Eight" B-52B #008 is supposed to be retired now with the B-52H you mention ( it is painted white, with the NASA logo - looks weird ) Taking over the job. There was some overlap time for both jets, but the tall tail B model should be gone now.
We posted a similar article yesterday department.
I what department this story actually comes from.
*INSERT FLAME HERE*
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Maybe it's related to these plans?
Choice quotes...
"The US will be able, using aircraft based on its own territory, to strike at individual targets without warning and without the need for foreign bases"
"The current and future international political environment severely constrains this country's ability to conduct long-range strike missions"
I saw one a few months ago at Castle Air Museum (near Modesto, CA...http://www.elite.net/castle-air/) and the wingspan sure didn't seem like 55 feet....and I was walking around underneath it. The plane seemed very slender and thin....more like a steerable horizontal rocket. I guess it's in the perception of the shape though. On the other hand, the B-36 they have seemed gigantic...no wait, it is gigantic.
RIIIiiight...
....
so DOING the calculations you would be just 10^4 off a 20 kiloton bomb.
That is the equivalent of a 2 ton bomb (tnt equivalent).
I think Most militaries have these at least since WWII
so what ?
Bind0
Yes, I know Buick stopped making the SR-71 a few months ago, but they should restart their high-quantity production.
if they could use this to build a mach 7 cruise missile that has the accuracy of todays cruise missiles it would be an incredibly formidable weopen. Imagine a spy sat. finding a target and then being able to deliver ordnance on that target within a few hours regardless of whether or not there are any deployments in the region.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
These things have been experimented with decades ago. What is different about it now?
What...?
the point is hat this bomb could be delivered to any point on the surface of this planet, without the target knowing, and or having enough time to react. e.g. launch rocket... 1 hour later USA to (uncooperating nation) "You have 1 hour to comply to our demands or your building (capitol, army facility, stock pile of tnt) will explode.". There is know way they could evacuate a army facility or remove the sensitive materials from the target before the bomb got there... if they comply to our demands... the bomb flys over there heads, into the ocean somewhere. And of course if we anticipated that they werent going to comply... every 30 minutes we launch another one.
This is what most people dont understand about atomic weapons. A. Everyone is afraid of them being used... look at the facts, USA is the only nation to use atomic weapons to harm humans on purpose. B. When we bombed hiroshima, the japanese did not comply, 1 week later we bombed another nagasaki they got the point that time... if the japanese had not complied then... the USA would have built even more bombs, quicker faster and bigger (its the american way you know)... Little Boy (the first atomic weapon dropped on hiroshima) weighed ~10,000 lbs... the b-29 bomber that carried the bomb has a max load of 20,000... so thats 2 bombs / b-29... according to the wikipedia site in 1940 the govt contracted for 1200 b-29s... thats 2400 hiroshimas... a day... USA has had the ability to bomb this planet into non-existance ever since we built the first damn device ('I am death destroyer of worlds'). And now, not only do we have the technology to nuke earth to hell and back... we can send bombs to mars, jupiter, the moon... any point in our solar system. "HELLO WORLD" if you think your going to be somewhere, where you cannot be nuked to hell by the united states of fucking america, you are sadly mistaken. And to think that every redwhiteblue blood is running around afraid of towelheads hijacking aircraft... the only terrorists we should be afraid of are ourselves (and fucking idiots driving with cellphones).
Jon Bardin
I hope NASA has all the units right on this one, and they don't get all excited when it hits 5000 KPH.
Wouldn't be the first time they'd gotten confused between metric and that kludgy old British system that the rest of the US uses.
I always find it funny that the US made such a stink about getting out from under British rule, but they continue to use their measurement system long after everyone else has moved on...
- Murphy's Corollary: - It is impossible to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
"No vehicle has ever flown at hypersonic speeds powered by an air-breathing scramjet engine."
How does this relate to the run of HyShot back in August? The X-43A won't be the first successful scramjet-powered flight....and HyShot was designed to go Mach 7.6, which I think is hypersonic. Is NASA implying that HyShot didn't really work?
What the fuck? There is not and never has been any aircraft manufacturer with a name close to "Aerospaciale." The Concorde was jointly developed by a consortium of British and French companies, none of which have the name which you conjured.
...must proofread posts better...
That should be:
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
SCRAMJETs will not use kerosene-derived propellant. They will combust hydrogen with oxygen from the atmosphere (maybe you should have done 2 seconds of research).
A flight on a Mach 5 aircraft will be shorter than the same flight on a Mach
If what you mean by "somewhat" is "not really." I can't see the 20 Concordes built adding significantly the net pollution of thousands of supersonic military aircraft in service around the world.
They don't need to.
RTFA, but that could be applied more to those who responded that you.
:-)
TFA implies it will always need assistance.
This engine works by taking in compressed air at supersonic speeds. It necessarily must be launched to supersonic speeds by some other means.
NASA's current design is, from TFA, launch craft from earth with Jet engines, mid-earth flight with scramjet, into outers-space with rockets.
So this is a more accurate test than one might imagine without ****
Don't forget that, while sitting on the ground before takeoff, there is SUBSTANTIAL fuel leakage out of the plane. It consistently drips a significant amount of fuel while on the ground and not "heated". Once the plane is in the air and heated up, the expansion causes all of the joints and fittings to tighten up thus eliminating fuel leakage.
Kind of a weird "feature" but I thought I'd throw that in as well.
Just look at it! The actual plane is the black thing at the front of the booster.
d iu m/EC01-0019-18.jpg
A /index .html
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/X-43A/Me
More pictures here
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/X-43
I think it's unfair to mod it as a troll because he is absolutely right.
The engine will not function at relatively low altitudes. The thicker air will likely poison the reaction, or at the very least, the characteristics of the shock wave will cause it to not be directed into the nozzle properly. It will likely slow significantly due to air-drag, without thrust, at low altitude.
But I think it might make a nifty interceptor warhead for NMD. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Why do people keep saying we were there to get someone else's oil? We're seeing record prices at the pump. Hell, I wish we had taken oil...we could use it about now.
The flamebait part came from, "Rather than say, bombing civilians into the ground just to get our hands on somebody else's oil." If there was basis in fact it wouldn't be flamebait.
I can't get to any nasa.gov sites. www.nasa.gov resolves to canonical www.nasa.gov.speedera.net. I don't think it's possible to /. NASA, so is anyone else unable to reach NASA sites?
The B-29s were not all capable of delivering A-bombs in 1945.
o ei ng_b29.htm
There was a special model B-29 called the "Silverplate" that was the only B-29 that could drop nukes.
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/b
"Late in 1944, AAF leaders selected the Martin assembly line to produce a batch of Superfortress atomic bombers codenamed "Silverplate" aircraft. Martin modified these special B-29s by deleting all gun turrets except for the tail position, removing armor plate, installing Curtiss electric propellers, and configuring the bomb bay to accommodate either the "Fat Man" or "Little Boy" versions of the atomic bomb."
Why do you think the object of controlling oil production and shipping is to lower the price? Gas wasn't exactly cheap (in constant dollars) back in the 50s, when mid-east oil was vertically integrated from well to pump. The lowest gas prices were under Clinton, IIRC.
Your logic is specious.
Done. Or at least I meta-modded the offtopic mod "unfair." I wish I could fix it.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin