NASA Provides Results Of Scramjet Test

Guinnessy writes "Last March, NASA carried out the world's first test flight of a scramjet-powered aircraft. The Industrial Physicist has the latest results from this test. According to the article scramjet-powered missiles and aircraft could be in mass production as early as 2010. This piece is also a good introduction for those unfamilar with scramjet technology."

Comments

Scramjet powered missiles/aircraft?!

[JoeShmoe950]

I want a scramjet powered heatsink to OC my CPU (ok, it make it hotter, but anyway...)

Re:Scramjet powered missiles/aircraft?!

[AKAImBatman]

Just replace the side panel of your case with a Stirling refrigeration unit. It'll draw quite a bit of power, but you should be able to get the inside of your case close to super-conducting temperatures. Of course, do this at your own risk. I'm in no way responsible for any cracks, warping, or other thermal damage you do to your equipment.

Re:Scramjet powered missiles/aircraft?!

[tylernt]

Don't follow that link at work!

in due chance

[Anonymous Coward]

[quote]could be in mass production by 2010[/quote]

i think its liklier they're hitting the peace pipe again.

Re:in due chance

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. War pipe.

Great news!

[AKAImBatman]

One thing that has often concerned me is the matter of lift from the wings/lifting body. Obviously this design should be able to go into orbit with a relatively minor assist from rocket engines. However, how much lift does it actually get? Is it possible to build a craft that can use wing lift all the way up to LEO? If so, could it then be possible to obtain a flight envelope on the way back down?

The primary reason why I've concerned myself with this, is that the Space Shuttle literally "falls" out of orbit in a very steep dive. The idea is to re-enter somewhere over the Pacific and shed enough speed to land just before the Atlantic. Obviously, it was important the normal flight operations didn't overfly the USSR. The problem with this sort of profile is that the Shuttle takes on a tremendous heat load from the aero-braking. Yet there's nothing really inherent in the atmosphere that says the the Shuttle MUST take on that load.

To get to the point, would it be possible to return in a glide or powered flight without the requirement of a heat shield? i.e. Could a vehicle obtain a thin-atmosphere flight envelope and reduce its speed at a more gradual rate? Perhaps even to the point where no shielding is required?

Any aerospace engineers in the know want to comment?

Re:Great news!

[AeroNate]

Any aerospace engineers in the know want to comment?

Well, I am not an expert in reentry, but I'll take a crack at your question. I think the important thing is not maximum heating, but rather some integral of heating over time. If the shuttle or other vehicle entered more gradually, it may be that it would actually reach a higher temperature because it would have more time to soak up the heat from the plasma around it. No matter how well you insulate something, eventually it has to reach practically the same temperature as its surroundings. You hope to get on the ground long before that happens.

Wings are heavy and delicate, and it would be hard to imagine that they could be large enough to significantly lift the craft at high altitude and lower speed and still survive the heating. (The heavier the wings are, the more kinetic energy you need to dissipate to slow down--and the more heating you get.) IMHO wings are a dumb thing to carry into space with you. Lifting bodies are better.

Re:Great news!

[nmos]

IANAAE but it seems to me that in order to re-enter more slowly you'd actually have to fire up your engines which may have consequences.

Re:Great news!

[Phanatic1a]

Is it possible to build a craft that can use wing lift all the way up to LEO?

Maybe.

In a real gas, aerodynamic lift is always accompanied by aerodynamic drag, and the ratio of the two is not dependent upon density or pressure or altitude. Until the point at which you actually achieve orbit, if you are relying upon aerodynamic lift to keep you in the sky, there's a certain amount of drag you have to overcome just to keep accelerating, and you can't make that problem go away by playing with the altitude.

The absolute best hypersonic lifting body designs anyone's been able to come up with, even theoretically on paper, have lift:drag ratios on the order of 10:1, so you need a thrust:weight ratio of at least .1:1 to keep accelerating.

Re:Great news!

[Hakubi_Washu]

Hm,
I'm no expert either, but I would tend to think that the re-entry problem is not height, but the speed required to stay in orbit. In order to return to earth you hve to reduce speed pretty heavily (The reason SpaceShipOne didn't "reach orbit" was that it can't ever reach the necessary speed in the first place). If you don't do this "fast" enough you'll not reach earth surface, but continue to orbit, albeit way more eccentric. It is possible to land in this way, a lot of mars flight plans include this multiple aerobraking/atmosphere dipping, but it takes a) a lot more time, as your orbit takes you pretty far outwards between the "dips" and b) it is way more risky as your calculations have to be very precise (Otherwise... You know what flat stones can do on water? :-)
As I said, I'm merely a /.-reading geek, but I think this is pretty much what the problem looks like...

Re:Great news!

[Planetes]

However, how much lift does it actually get? Is it possible to build a craft that can use wing lift all the way up to LEO? If so, could it then be possible to obtain a flight envelope on the way back down?


This depends entirely in how you define leo. In order to reach what is generally considered space (100km+) you will be outside 99% of the atmosphere. This means that the atmospheric density is extremely low. So low that the normal rules of fluid mechanics are invalid and you have to treat air as a rarified gas. This is statistics based rather than standard calculus based. The extremely low density effectively means that lift from the wings/lifting body is essentially zero unless you have an extremely large surface area. In fact, at this point, drag and the erosion from atomic oxygen and free hydrogen are much more prevalent than the force of lift. As a result, once you reach this point lift is essentially zero although the engines would continually accelerate you to the necessary orbital velocity.

In other words, lift would be dependent on your surface area of the wings. This will get you to the top of the atmosphere. At which point, you have to use pure thrust to reach orbit. In addition, once you reach a certain point the O2 levels drop to the point where a scramjet is useless and you need to use conventional rockets.

Orbit is more a function of speed than a function of lift or drag. ISS uses reboosts periodically to compensate for the fact that LEO actually exists within the upper atmosphere and it's subject to a drag force.

Re:Great news!

[Hacksaw]

Is it possible to build a craft that can use wing lift all the way up to LEO?

To a useful LEO, no. I think that would require that there be atmosphere all the way up to said LEO.

LEO is considered to be any orbit below about 1500 kilometers. 100 kilometers is the agreed upon border between atmosphere and space.

is that the Space Shuttle literally "falls" out of orbit in a very steep dive

My understanding is that it does this because a shallower descent would cuase the shuttle to skip off the atmosphere like a stone off a pond.

In any case, you have to ablate that energy somehow. What you are getting rid of is the potential stored in the ship by boosting it into orbit. You must either use the atmosphere to slow you down, or rocket fuel. Reusable tiles are cheaper than fuel for this, and probably safer.

Re:Great news!

[jsebrech]

You don't really have to worry about wings or air availability at altitude if you can reach escape velocity.

From the earth's surface escape velocity is 25000mph. Mach 1 is 760mph, so escape velocity is mach 32. Ofcourse, that ignores air friction, and I have no idea whether a scramjet could ever reach that speed.

Ofcourse, the higher you go, the lower the escape velocity becomes. So maybe someone who actually knows what they're talking about can tell us how fast you would need to go at altitudes where the scramjet is still operational to reach escape velocity?

Re:Great news!

[sjames]

My understanding is that it does this because a shallower descent would cuase the shuttle to skip off the atmosphere like a stone off a pond.

In any case, you have to ablate that energy somehow.

That is all quite true.However, the question is can you reduce the rate enough that you don't have to resort to fragile tiles to handle the heat load.

For example, skipping off of the atmosphere need not be bad, since the time you spend in the skip is cooling you off. Each dip deeper into the atmosphere converts more momentum into heat and the skip back out gives you time to radiate it away.

For another example,what happens if instead of one big deorbit burn (such as the shuttle does) where you basically dive into the atmosphere, you do a smaller burn so that you do 10 or so more orbits losing a bit of momentum each time you dip into the upper atmosphere (twice per orbit)?

Note that I haven't done any calculations and it's entirely possible that such a plan wouldn't help at all.

Re:Great news!

[Hacksaw]

I think skipping off the atmosphere might be considered dangerous. And think about how much fuel you'd spend controlling the thing, instead of the control surfaces usable in the atmosphere.

There's also the time spent landing. You might have to take tenfold the amount of time to reduce the heat load to wear convential aircraft metal could take it. (Average orbit speed for the shuttle is about 17000 mph. Landing speed is 215 mph.)

Re:Great news!

[Planetes]

It should be noted that there is a difference between escape velocity and orbital velocity. Escape velocity is the delta V necessary to escape the gravity well. Orbital velocity is simply the V necessary to keep missing whatever object you're falling toward. All orbits are conic sections. A vehicle with a V greater than Vescape will be in an orbit with an open section (i.e. a hyperbolic orbit) and those under Vescape will be in a closed elliptical orbit.

To answer your question, Vescape for an object is the same regardless of altitude. The difference is that the initial V at higher altitudes is greater therefore the delta V necessary to reach Vescape is lower. The operational altitudes for a scramjet are so low that Vinitial is effectively zero compared to the delta V necessary to reach Vescape. Therefore, a scramjet doesn't get you close.

Also, Mach 1 is 760mph at a specific altitude only. As the altitude increases, the velocity corresponding to mach 1 decreases. M=V/a (a is speed of sound) a decreases as you rise because atmospheric density drops.

Re:Great news!

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Could a vehicle obtain a thin-atmosphere flight envelope and reduce its speed at a more gradual rate?

That's what the Shuttle does. Doing that reduces the temperature on the skin of the aircraft- but at a big price- the vehicle is reentering for longer- and hence more heat energy leaks into the vehicle. That's why the Shuttle looks like an inside-out kiln.

Perhaps even to the point where no shielding is required?

At the hypersonic lift ratios that are actually achieved, this is not quite possible. However, early designs for the Space Shuttle had far less extensive shielding requirements.

These designs were changed when the military requirements imposed a *longer* reentry to return to the launch site after a launch to a polar orbit.

So we have the Shuttle you see today.

Re:Great news!

[tylernt]

"You know what flat stones can do on water?"

Hey, that was on a Star Trek TNG episode. I thought bouncing off an atmosphere was silly, because the bounce you'd get from THIN high-altitude atmosphere would not be enough to lift you very high.

I'm no physicist but I'm skeptical of the whole atmosphere-skipping thing.

Re:Great news!

[jafac]

Orbit is more a function of speed than a function of lift or drag.

Exactly right.

One coule achieve orbit at "sea level" so long as one was going fast enough, could somehow maintaint that speed given the aerodynamic drag at that altitude, and encountered no terrain obstacles.

The hope of the Scramjet is;
Obtain enough velocity while still within the atmosphere to attain orbital velocity, while overcoming drag via engine thrust. Of course, the vehicle will eventually run out of fuel, so the next aim is;
At this altitude, obtain SURPLUS velocity, which can be used to gain altitude (no longer via aerodynamic lift, but through sheer newtonian momentum). As altitude is increased, there will be a point where there's not enough air to run the engine, yet there's still enough air to create drag. That drag, plus speed lost to attain altitude, will slow the vehicle down. If the engine produced enough surplus velocity, then, in theory, it could reach what we normally consider to be LEO (about 200 miles?). It's even theoretically possible to reach higher orbits, or even escape Earth's gravity altogether - if we can find a material that can stand the thermal loading during the attainment of this surplus velocity, and if we can carry enough fuel with us to burn. But outside of the realm of theory lie the cold hard facts that we don't have materials like that, so we'll probably just use rockets to attain higher altitudes.

In which case, it seems to make more sense to use the scramjet on a BOOST vehicle, and stick to a rocket upper-stage to propel your orbiter or payload. The scramjet booster should be recoverable, of course. So it's looking more and more like the future model of space flight is something like what Scaled Composites came up with:

A smaller Orbiter or Payload-type vehicle, rocket propelled, piggybacked on a larger booster vehicle. Probably also piggybacked on an even larger carrier.
(say - a modified C-5, carrying a large booster to an altitude of say, like 60,000 feet or so (what's the C-5's service ceiling?) - Drop the vehicle, that uses an initial rocket boost, or perhaps turbofans, to get up to Mach 2-3, a Scramjet for mach 3-15 or so, then at a given altitude, release an upper-stage for orbital insertion and maneuvering. The Booster stage returns for recovery, as well as the carrier. The upper-stage vehicle doesn't really need to be reusable. Unless it's manned. The most expensive hardware would probably be the Booster vehicle. If the upper stage is manned, well, there's a lot of very expensive avionics and life-support stuff you'd want to recover and re-use. But we're no longer talking about something the size of the Shuttle. Not even the combined Booster/Upper-stage. I guess a C-5 could probably carry something that large, but since the Carrier is doing the bulk of the heavy-lifting that would otherwise have been done by the Shuttle's main engines and external tank, the Carrier shaves a bunch of mass off the Booster/upper-stage, which leaves a lot more capacity for payload.

Re:Great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

From the earth's surface escape velocity is 25000mph. Mach 1 is 760mph, so escape velocity is mach 32. Ofcourse, that ignores air friction, and I have no idea whether a scramjet could ever reach that speed.

As stated elsewhere, you don't need 25,000mph to obtain orbit. LEO orbit is around 17,000mph.

Or, only mach 22. Not including the whole issue that "mach speed" changes based on pressure/temperature/density of the atmosphere.

Re:Great news!

[mlyle]

The Soviets did it on Zond 6 (part of the Lunar L1 program), and it was heavily studied for Apollo and subsequent vehicles. Peak heating is lower than other entry methods, but only slightly, and the degree of precision required for the same ultimate landing position accuracy is much higher.

From http://www.space.edu/projects/book/chapter20.html

On November 6, 1968 a Proton rocket launched Zond 6 to within 2420 km of the Moon's surface. Cameras aboard photographed the Earth rising over the bleak lunar terrain; however, on the way back a gasket failed which would have killed any cosmonauts on board. Zond 6 performed a complex skip maneuver, decelerating to 7.6 km/sec over India then skipping back into space and landing in the Soviet Union. The parachute failed during landing and, once again, any human occupants would have perished. After this disaster, any thoughts of sending a cosmonaut to the Moon before January 1969 faded as Apollo 8 accomplished its historic lunar mission. There were three more Zond flights after Zond 6; a potential Zond failed on the 20th of January 1969 when its Proton booster failed. On August 8, 1969 after the successful Apollo 11, Zond 7 successfully orbited the Moon and returned. The last flight, Zond 8, was flown a little more than a year later successfully around the Moon, but landed in the Indian Ocean rather than back in Russia.

Re:Great news!

[calidoscope]

(say - a modified C-5, carrying a large booster to an altitude of say, like 60,000 feet or so (what's the C-5's service ceiling?)

ISTR that it is a bit over 40,000 feet. What you would want is something like a scaled up RB-57F.

Re:Great news!

[tylernt]

Interesting. I presume skip would only work with a specially shaped vehicle (aka flat rock or airfoil). No doubt less effective with a brick-shaped shuttle from the Enterprise.

Re:Great news!

[can56]

I am not an expert in reentry either, but AFAIK it's the friction between the (leading) surfaces of the vehicle and the atmosphere which creates the heat -- not the temperature of the surrounding plasma. So, if you can reduce the speed of the vehicle before it reaches the lower (dense) atmosphere, the thermal load is reduced as well.

Re:Great news!

[AeroNate]

Yeah, thermodynamically irreversible processes like friction and shockwaves turn kinetic energy into thermal energy, and in this case the atmosphere is heated to a plasma by the vehicle's motion relative to the atmosphere. (Mainly at the leading edges where the shock waves are, I think) So, you can attribute it to friction if you like. But the interaction between the vehicle and the gas/plasma is the heating mechanism. Once the atmosphere is heated at the leading edge, it flows back past the rest of the vehicle. I believe there is a thin layer of relatively cool gas in between the tiles and the hottest plasma. (It has been cooled by giving up some of its heat to the cooler surface of the vehicle. When there is a disruption of the flow (like when tiles are damaged on a shuttle) the resulting increase in turbulence can increase the transport of heat through this cooler layer and cause problems. If you could slow down higher up, then, yes, that would be good, but it is hard to do without causing heating because you have to push on the atmosphere somehow in order to do it. You could use an engine burn, of course, but that is very expensive and that means that you had to take extra fuel into orbit with you, which means that you could have had a bigger useful payload instead. I read somebody's explanation of why a winged reentry is inferior to a capsule and heat shield, and I bought his arguement, but I cannot remember it I'm afraid.

Re:Great news!

[code-dweller]

The real trick is fuel, not heat.

If you had enough fuel to slow yourself down to something resembling a dead stop before running deeply into the atmosphere, then you could re-enter without having to deal with such extreme speeds and the associated heat. You could fall back into the atmosphere in some high drag configuration resembling the re-entry procedure used by Space Ship 1 (Scaled Composites et al).

In fact, if you could have an even more efficient engine then you could conceivably make your re-entry without ever exceeding the speed of sound within the atmosphere...

Unfortunately, this kind of efficiency simply doesn't exist in the engine technologies we have today. Also, part of the point of getting into LEO is to go fast - that is, unless you're trying to leave orbit in which case you're trying to go really fast.

It might be possible to bring along enough fuel to do something like this... but if you did then you probably couldn't cary anything else - so there would be no money for the trip (no payload, no ticket).

So, we're left with the compromize... the more heat you can take, and the less your fuel load, the more efficient you can be in getting from here to there. The scramjet lets them leave a ton (ok, several tons) of oxidizer on the ground... Take that weight reduction add the cost of a few exotic metals to take the heat, and you've got plenty of room left for payload.

Once it gets cheap enough to get from here to there, really, really, fast - there will be plenty of money for the exotic metals... Remember, once upon a time the idea of paying $10 to mail a letter was just plain laughable. Now you can't watch a good football game without seeing a dozen ads for overnight letter cariers... and let's face it: who among us has never waited to the last minute to get something done? When the grade is pass/fail you pay what it takes -- if you can. (with Concord, people couldn't - so it's dead now :-( oops! )

Hope this helps...

_M

Re:Great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

It has a lot more to do with entry angle than anything else. Shallow angles skip, steep angles aerobrake aggressively.

Re:Great news!

[sublum]

To get to the point, would it be possible to return in a glide or powered flight without the requirement of a heat shield?

Not sure if it's nearly as high-altitude a vehicle as you were thinking for, but regarding Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne, it feathers its tail up, for gliding in from about a 100 KM altitude

As for the weight of the wings, I've read that Scaled has developed a technique of making the wing as one single carbon composite body, structurally sound and not as heavy as a wing ribbed-up with a metal airframe.

Re:Great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Informative. It's the gems like these that make slashdot worth dredging.

Re:Great news!

[sjames]

I think skipping off the atmosphere might be considered dangerous.

That's entirely believable. It certainly makes for a complex problem. I do wonder though, if part of the problem is that it would require dynamic adjustments to the plan, while NASA is addicted to scripting anything that lasts longer than a second or so.

There would be opportunity to use atmospheric forces for control though. If it produces enough force to bounce the craft back into space, it produces enough force to make attitude adjustments.

There's also the time spent landing.

That is worth considering, but with increased safety, easier turnaround, and other benefits, a 20 hour landing procedure isn't such a high price to pay.

Actually doing some calculations, it looks like it should be possible to use a more gentle aerobraking to at least bring things within reach of the latest research into hypersonic planes using alloys that while well more expensive than aluminum, would still be much lower maintainance than heat tiles and less fragile than the carbon panels on the shuttle's leading edge.

The above implies that a scramjet powered hypersonic plane would be about halfway to being a true spaceplane. That doesn't make the step trivial by any means, but it would likely be worthwhile, and means the bar is much lower than with the shuttle (of course, the shuttle is '70 technology while what I'm talking about is current R&D).

Re:Great news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you *can* play the altitude to achieve higher speeds. See, planes have two speeds, IAS (Indicated Air Speed) and TAS (Total Air Speed), the former is measured by an inboard instrument, the latter is relative to the ground. What you need to achieve orbit is high TAS, but for flying the relevant one is IAS. Performance speeds are indicated as IAS, a plane flying against the wind will have a lower TAS than one flying in the same direction than the wind, given the same IAS.
The lower the air density, the lower IAS is relative to TAS. If you fly high enough you can achieve really high TAS with low IAS, although you always need air to produce lifting, of course.
So I wouldn't be surprised if almost-orbit was achievable with wings/lifting bodies. You'd still need something (like chem engines) to get into proper orbit, I think.

just what we need

[SuperBanana]

The 2003 engine has the potential to power future missiles, aircraft, and access-to-space vehicles. Last year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, U.S. Navy, Boeing, Aerojet, and Johns Hopkins University also ground-tested a scramjet engine, which was constructed primarily from nickel alloys, powered by JP10 jet fuel, and intended exclusively for hypersonic missiles.

Great. So now we'll have missiles that can do mach 15. It's being billed for aircraft as well, but nobody seems to have addressed issues of, gee, say, it only being useful at incredible altitudes. Nevermind that the airline industry is crumbling requiring massive bailouts from the Feds, and the only supersonic aircraft to date to do commercial passenger flights was never profitable in almost 40 years of operation.

The most influential of these efforts was NASA's National Aerospace Plane (NASP) program, established in 1986 to develop a vehicle with speed greater than Mach 15 and horizontal takeoff and landing capabilities. The program ended in 1993,

"The program ended"? What a polite way of saying "we failed. But along the way we spent almost 10 years and probably billions on some futuristic space plane with no real purpose."

I'm sick of NASA justifying themselves as an organization for exploration and science- when they're instead spending most of their time (and my money) on weapons platform research and lining defense contractor pockets. We haven't managed to do anything for millions of Americans with no health insurance , our kids are dumb as bricks because their schools are cutting programs and staff, and our police/fire/ems departments are laying off staff left and right from budget cuts...but hey, we've got a plane that can do mach 15 at 100,000 feet! Sweet!

Re:just what we need

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The problem is that killing NASA won't solve those problems you state or remotely fund a fix on any of them, unless you want an emotional band-aid.

The Federal budget shouldn't be used to pay for local services such as police/fire/EMS. There's a sepration of powers that needs to be there. Federal funding of local services usually means strings attached, and too often those strings are nearly as much or more expensive than the money provided.

The things wrong with the educational system goes far deeper than money, throwing more money at it without solving the other problems would only make things worse, IMO.

Re:just what we need

[SuperBanana]

The problem is that killing NASA won't solve those problems you state or remotely fund a fix on any of them, unless you want an emotional band-aid.

I see. So we should just keep throwing money at defense technology? We spend more on defense per capita than the next top three nations combined- do you realize that includes North Korea, widely considered to be a "military state"?

The problem is that taxes are all interlinked, because they're all paid by you and me out of the same place- our bank accounts. So when federal taxes go up, guess what? That means more political pressure on state and local politicians. They have to cut local and state taxes because people are screaming blue bloody murder that their taxes are outrageous. Perfect example- MA's governor, Mitt Romney, wants to slash taxes- but his last budget severely cut funding for a lot of very important stuff- programs for the mentally ill and money for state colleges, for example. There's no money left in the coffers for improving the state's roads- even though we have a fantastic system of arteries in Boston now, soon as you get off them, you find some of the shittiest roads in the country.

You want local services to be locally funded? Fine. Cut the money out of the budget- don't redirect it to "terrorism" crap or defense stuff- I want to see my federal tax bill for 2005 go down. Second, get corporations back to footing half the taxes, like they did in the 1950's, instead of the 2% of today.

The things wrong with the educational system goes far deeper than money, throwing more money at it without solving the other problems would only make things worse, IMO.

When schools have to shut down all their extracurricular activities and students have to share BOOKS in this day and age- uh, I beg to differ. Throwing money is EXACTLY what needs to be done. But, enior citizens hate taxes, don't have kids in school, and vote in large numbers.

Re:just what we need

[nmos]

I see. So we should just keep throwing money at defense technology? We spend more on defense per capita than the next top three nations combined- do you realize that includes North Korea, widely considered to be a "military state"?

All good stuff but even if you consider NASA part of "defense technology" and ignore all of the areas it contributes to it's still only a very tiny fraction of our defense spending. Even cutting NASA completely wouldn't change the stat you quoted at all.

Re:just what we need

[bhima]

I mostly agree with your post, but since I'm a space fan boy I can't resist to comment. I think NASA is researching stuff that will get funded and unfortunately to do that they begin with technology with obvious military uses. I've read a lot of articles on this propulsion system and I just can see it ever really making it out of military use. The efficiency of this is poor and that would drive costs up and that is one of the things that killed the concord. I fly to the US a couple of times a year and while I would like to have a dramatically shorter flight I'm not willing to pay more than I already have to (although I generally upgrade)

Oh and I find you comments about school books to be misplaced. The real problem with school books is that the whole publishing system is a corrupt money grab and is unrelated to the corrupt money grab that exists in the industrial military complex (other than the fact they both shows flaws inherent in the capitalist system).

Re:just what we need

[DAldredge]

Think about use this engine in unmaned cargo aircraft?

How about delivery YESTERDAY to China?

Re:just what we need

[Bi()hazard]

The parent post sounds suspiciously like a troll, but it's been modded up enough to deserve an analysis of its claims.

Great. So now we'll have missiles that can do mach 15. It's being billed for aircraft as well, but nobody seems to have addressed issues of, gee, say, it only being useful at incredible altitudes. Nevermind that the airline industry is crumbling requiring massive bailouts from the Feds, and the only supersonic aircraft to date to do commercial passenger flights was never profitable in almost 40 years of operation.

Most people don't like missiles, but access-to-space vehicles that operate at incredible altitudes are very useful. We have a lot of very useful satellites up there, and these "space planes" could make those satellites a lot cheaper. But you do have a point on the airline industry. The Feds waste endless sums of money bailing out companies that fail to innovate and offer infamously poor service, and then the feds turn around and regulate them into the ground to prevent terrorism. Flying, which was once a decadent luxury, is now a painful ordeal. The airline CEO's are riding a gold mine of federal bailout money while the taxpayers get screwed.

What can we do to restore the airlines? I'll tell you what. We need to turn them into desireable luxuries affordable to the masses.

Today, when you enter an airport, you're destined to spend hours sitting around being bored while waiting for your plane. You'll go through a pain-in-the-ass security procedure that doesn't secure much at all. And then you'll be packed into cramped seats like sardines.

How can we solve all of these problems without spending vast sums of money, even though the people running the airlines are corrupt, money grubbing fiends?

Easy-turn all those weaknesses into strengths! Through the power of sex. Take all the money you would spend on bailing out the airlines, and use it on a massive campaign to fight sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy. When people show up at the airport, the security check will consist of attractive members of the opposite sex strip-searching them to ensure health, hygiene, and the use of contraceptives. The hours of waiting for delayed flights will *fly* by as they turn into massive orgies. Being packed like sardines on the plane will be a good thing now. (we just have to make sure seating arrangements keep people in compatible groups, perhaps ordered by age, with plenty of cute stewardesses and stewards to guarantee everyone has a good time?)

This approach has endless benefits: Everyone will want to fly, turning the airline business into a highly competitive, profit-filled arena. Everyone will have a great time, making life better for the common citizen. Illegal prostitution will become a thing of the past, and the safety checks will result in huge reductions in national healthcare expenses as problems are prevented before they spread. And how does this relate to scramjets? Ooh, imagine the possibilites of doing all that in orbit, with zero gravity! I, for one, welcome our weightless airline sex overlords. And underlords. Depending on whether you're a top or bottom.

I'm sick of NASA justifying themselves as an organization for exploration and science- when they're instead spending most of their time (and my money) on weapons platform research and lining defense contractor pockets.

NASA is actually one of the less defense-oriented research organizations. Believe it or not, the department of defense is the single most influential source of funding for pure science in this country. Nobody else wants to pay the bills. We'd see fewer weapons platforms if the government spent MORE on pure science that won't be applied for another decade. But as long as scientists can only get funded by playing the DoD's game, we're going to see giant robots wielding laser cannons before a cure for cancer. Simply kill the giant robot programs without increasing spending on pure research, and you'll see unemployed scientists movi

Re:just what we need

[davejenkins]

We haven't managed to do anything for millions of Americans with no health insurance , our kids are dumb as bricks because their schools are cutting programs and staff, and our police/fire/ems departments are laying off staff left and right from budget cuts...but hey, we've got a plane that can do mach 15 at 100,000 feet! Sweet!

Okay, I'll bite:

1. I am not a big fan of NASA right now either, especially after seeing what an expensive boondoggle the Shuttle and ISS have become, but considering their budget, we do get some pretty good basic R&D for our money.

2. What more would you have the Feds do with your (my) money toward all the bleeding heart causes you listed?
- there is already assistance for anyone below the poverty line that pretty much equates to free food, free healthcare, and to a certain extend, free housing.
- did it ever occur to you that our kids are "dumb as bricks" because there is TOO MUCH interference from the government? What makes you think more federal money will fix things?
- police/firemen/ems is the responsibility of your local county council, not the federal government. I agree that those services are very important, but maybe we should be arguing for LESS money going to the feds, so we can spend more tax money locally.

- nothing is stopping you from donating your money to match your heart, but you won't impose your value system (and corresponding budget) on me without a fight...

Re:just what we need

[king-manic]

I see. So we should just keep throwing money at defense technology? We spend more on defense per capita than the next top three nations combined- do you realize that includes North Korea, widely considered to be a "military state"?

thats essentially been your economic policy for the last 60 years. In a reccession, you spend like crazy to get out. But you spend liek crazy on military industrial expenditures. Even Nasa is a psuedo military complex, since many innovatiosn from Nasa aid the military.

In other coutnries, they have other strategies. Canada will sink money into it's health/wellness complex. Japan does civil engineering projects. It certainly beneifits yoru populace less then Japans or Canada's strategy but it means you'll have nice shiny, highly advanced weapons to use.

Re:just what we need

[Ralph Wiggam]

My favorite sentance is: "NASA began developing scramjet engines in the late 1950s"

It's been 50 years with virtually no usefull results, but somehow they're sure that this will be in production within the next 6 years.

The only thing NASA has had any luck with recently is unmanned probes. Thier manned projects seem to all be of the "inspire schoolchildren" variety. The space station costs 10+ billion dollars and is being staffed by a basic maintenence crew that has no time for any scientific work (when's the last time you saw the ISS in the news).

As soon as NASA gets to work in the space elevator, I'll get excited.

-B

Re:just what we need

[Jeff DeMaagd]

If you want to cut the military, cut the military. Comparitively, the NASA budget is peanuts. Don't try to cut the NASA budget for space exploration thinking you are making any sort of significant dent in military spending.

The problem with schools is still more than money. Schools can have all the money in the world, but if the community does not support education, it is moot. If parents de-facto regard school as a babysitter program and yet still don't allow any form of discipline or educational challenge, then the money is still wasted. This is especially the case if they'll sue because "Johnny" can't pass the 9th grade, because they think making him study for half an hour the night before is just too outrageous.

Re:just what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

The Federal budget shouldn't be used to pay for local services such as police/fire/EMS. There's a sepration of powers that needs to be there. Federal funding of local services usually means strings attached, and too often those strings are nearly as much or more expensive than the money provided.

The fact that the feds like to get their sticky fingers in and micromanage the process is entirely separate from using federal money to pay for local police/fire/EMS/education.

Let's take two, equally sized areas, with equal population and equal needs. But area A is comprised of rich folks with high land values and area B is comprised of poor folk with low land values. Area A is roughly 10x as rich as area B.

Equipment and supplies aren't priced based on the buyers ability to pay. (The rich side of town can buy more "bells and whistles" but a truck is a truck and a book is a book for the most part.) So in order for area B to buy the same equipment (even the 50% cheaper version), they have to have a tax rate that is 5x higher then area A.

Salary is more elastic, but even if salaries in area A are twice as high as area B, once again, area B has to have a 5x higher tax rate then A.

So, should or shouldn't the government who is over both areas, redistribute funds among the two areas so that area B gets the same level of service as area A, but without paying ruinous tax rates?

Re:just what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been 50 years with virtually no usefull results, but somehow they're sure that this will be in production within the next 6 years.

Materials science has not stood still in the past 50 years. Look at how aircraft were constructed 50 years ago compared to today's military jets. Bits of aluminum riveted together was probably the norm back in 1954 (and since that was only 10 years after WW2, possibly even some balsa wood).

Were we able to make diamonds out of thin air back in the 1950s? What about carbon-composite frames? Or heck, when was velcro invented?

Re:just what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmm... NASA still does civilian-side research. When the DoD/DARPA/BoeingLockheedMartinGeneralDyanmics comes at you with $$$, though, do you turn it down?

Nope, not if your a governmental agency.

The "health insurance", "dumb kids", etc. are all red herrings. They were dead arguments 30 years ago, and they're just as dead today.

Police/Fire/EMS are laying off staff because they're seen as too much largesse. Bonds to support them are seen as "taxes to support more 'big' government", rather than adjuncts to lower home, business or fire insurance rates.

Again, our kids are dumb as bricks NOT directly because of cutting programs and staff, but because of a decidedly unsupportive environment at many levels - from the school board, to school administration, to most importantly, society and parents of students in general, about academic achievement. Yes, there are people at all schooling levels who DO care, but in general, the trend has been in a negative flow for a LONG time, but it's accellerating downward, because school for most students and families in the US is simply a paid-for by someone else child care program.

Re:just what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

"We spend more on defense per capita than the next top three nations combined- do you realize that includes North Korea, widely considered to be a "military state"?"

I don't know where you heard this, but you clearly don't know what you're talking about. The US barely ranks third in per-captia defense spending [1]. Furthermore, the US is ranked 47th in terms of defense spending as a percentage of GDP. North Korea is comfortably in first place for that rating [2].

1. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_dol_fi g_cap
2. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_per_of _gdp

Re:just what we need

[Bob Uhl]

The only thing NASA has had any luck with recently is unmanned probes. Thier manned projects seem to all be of the "inspire schoolchildren" variety.

And only schoolchildren (and those of the same intellectual maturity) are inspired anymore. Hell, even van Allen is arguing against manned space exploration these days!

We should devote our efforts to the oceans. Three quarters of the globe we've not even begun to exploit properly. Sure, it'll be tough. Sure, we'll need to exterminate the large and dangerous sea animals in order to make the oceans safe for man (just as we did with the large and dangerous land animals: seen any aurochs recently?). Sure, we'll need to develop good pressure-vessel technology. We can do all these things, and for a lot less money than space exploration.

The oceans are chock-full of life. We can farm it, we can eat it. The oceans are chock-full of unmined ores and minerals. We can use them. The oceans are chock-full of unexplored beauties. We can appreciate.

Space, meanwhile, is an over-expensive, mostly-empty waste of money.

Yes, someday we'll be able to make orbit cheaply. Someday we might be able to travel to the asteroid belt and back cheaply enough to make the journey worth it. And maybe someday some physicist will figure out how to travel to the stars in less than many, many, many lifetimes. That day's not now. Today is the day we can choose between the attainable and that which is yet out of our grasp.

The ocean is the future.

Re:just what we need

[ncc74656]

Second, get corporations back to footing half the taxes, like they did in the 1950's, instead of the 2% of today.

Businesses don't pay taxes. They take money that they receive from their customers (which, at some point, comes from you and me) and divert some of that to the government. If their taxes go up, they pass the increase along to their customers as higher prices for their goods and/or services. The end result is that you end up paying more for the stuff you buy.

engine design

[Lehk228]

After reading the article and looking at the diagram i wonder how the vulnerability of scramjet engine compares with a turbojet or turbofan when it comes to impacting birds and or bats, though at this time i am sure these engines are only being used at very high altitudes and in controlled conditions but if they make it into production fighter aircraft they will be used at lower altitudes. the lack of anything blocking off the path of the air in the diagrams makes it look almost as if an object would pass completely through the engine without damaging it, though i'm sure the object would be burnt to a crisp.

Re:engine design

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

It sounds like the engine depends on careful management of shock wave locations and heat profiles. Running a foreign object through could not be good.

On the other hand these are for speeds above Mach 3, at which you'd better be in very thin air or you'll start melting your vehicle. There aren't many birds at SR-71 cruising altitudes.

Re:engine design

[Planetes]

The simple answer is that scramjet engines are MUCH less susceptible to debris/bird impacts simply because they have essentially no moving parts. It's essentially a well modeled tube. The critter would fly straight through without physically impacting anything except the walls. Oh, and due to the extreme temperatures it'll probably be incinerated.

Re:engine design

[mj_1903]

Chances are you will create an unstart if the engine is running due to the changes in the shock waves as the foreign body progresses through.

Of course an unstart does not damage the engine but it can radically alter the course of the aircraft. An unstart on an SR-71 at full speed led the aircraft to turn in the direction of the engine at roughly a mile every 4 seconds. They generally did not last long though.

Re:engine design

[Anonymous Coward]

...impacting birds ...i'm sure the object would be burnt to a crisp.

Thus eliminating the need to thaw the chicken before impact testing!

Re:engine design

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't many(*) birds at SR-71 cruising altitudes

(*) even for arbitrarily small values of many.

It wasn't on its own or was it?

[qualico]

"These goals drew closer to achievement this spring when the first scramjet-powered aircraft flew on its own."
"...craft mounted on a Pegasus booster rocket,"

So I guess the idea is to get it up to speed, but I don't think it left the booster rocket did it?

So did it really fly on its own?

Here's another good link with some cool pics.
(Too bad you can't read the words on them.)

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/x43_soars_ fe ature.html

Re:It wasn't on its own or was it?

[qualico]

oops, forgot about Slashdot's "plain old text" posting long html links bug.

Take the space out of "fe ature.html"

Re:It wasn't on its own or was it?

[vivian]

clickable version of the above link

This begs the question

[d3ity]

Why do we need to go mach 15 anyway?

Re:This begs the question

[commodoresloat]

"Nobody will ever need to go past Mach 14."

Re:This begs the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we need to go mach 15 anyway?

Because some people just aren't satisfied with the shave they get from their Mach 3?

Re:This begs the question

[Lord Kano]

Why do we need to go mach 15 anyway?

Imagine how much lower FedEx and UPS delivery times will be.

Get that Moon Rock that you bought on Ebay in 3 hours or less.

Imagine how many spouses will get caught cheating. Call home to NYC from LA and 30 minutes later come walking in the door.

The possibilities are endless.

LK

Re:This begs the question

[Cobalt Jacket]

Or it becomes easier to cheat. "Yeah, honey, I'm across town, be there in time for dinner." Meanwhile, you've been visiting your slampiece on the other side of the continent.

It is just what we need.

[Behrooz]

It is just what we need. Or rather, it's a good stepping stone on the way to orbit.

Mach 15 at 100,000 feet is 10,200 MPH, which is also roughly equivalent to the following critical hurdles to cheap space travel:

10% of the ~185-mile altitude required for a stable orbit.
59% of the ~7.7 km/sec required to achieve low-earth orbital velocity.

NASA's budget is a drop in the bucket, approximately $15B out of total discretionary spending exceeding $850B, with a total federal budget exceeding $2.2 trillion... hah.

Hypersonic aerospace research is a good idea simply on its own merits, regardless of present applications. I certainly look forward to 90-minute sub-orbital shuttles from London to Tokyo, and being able to put things in orbit for less than $10,000/pound.

Re:It is just what we need.

[jafac]

NASA's budget is a drop in the bucket, approximately $15B. . .

damn. . . we just LOST half that amount in Iraq. (LOST, as in, "anybody seen my wallet?")

Hypersonic aerospace research is a good idea simply on its own merits, regardless of present applications. I certainly look forward to 90-minute sub-orbital shuttles from London to Tokyo, and being able to put things in orbit for less than $10,000/pound.

This is EXACTLY the kind of thing NASA is for. (not just pretty pictures from Hubble).

Private industry sure as hell ain't gonna do it. Why would they invest in this kind of technology when it's more profitable to stick you on a subsonic cattle-car, and charge you $2000 to fly to Europe in 10 hours?

ah, the space enthusiast censorship at its best

[SuperBanana]

Nice to see I can get modded up to 4 by people who agree with me about space/defense funding.

...and then 5 minutes later modded down for being "flamebait". Happens every time I post a comment that goes contrary to the "because it's there" space fanboyism.

God forbid someone should express an opinion that's unpopular, right folks?

Re:ah, the space enthusiast censorship at its best

[Behrooz]

Space funding and defense funding are two different issues. I can point to *many* concrete improvements in our lives due to technological spinoffs from the Space program.

Defense funding, on the other hand... has less to recommend it.

Re:ah, the space enthusiast censorship at its best

[Detritus]

If you write a polemic, you shouldn't be surprised when it gets modded as flamebait.

Re:ah, the space enthusiast censorship at its best

[bhima]

Every time someone says "I can point to *many* concrete improvements in our lives due to technological spinoffs from the Space program."

The first thing I think of is Tang!

Affordable?

[bStrom]

The article says that the scramjet will be "affordable", but what does that really mean? Affordable compared to current commercial technology? Affordable compared to current scramjet technology?

The affordability, more than anything else, will determine whether this technology is adopted. This engine might get you to your destination faster, but if it costs 10x as much the majority of fliers (and airlines) won't pay.

Re:Affordable?

[vena]

they're talking about fuel costs, basically. scramjet engines run in oxygen pulled from the very air they're flying through.

Re:Affordable?

[bStrom]

Yeah, but I'm talking about overall costs.

Great...

[Dayze!Confused]

All we need is more ways to shoot missiles. Hey maybe we could sell them to two combating countries so they can take each other out and then we can go invade them for having weapons of mass destruction.

Re:Great...

[commodoresloat]

Only if they have oil there.

Re:Great...

[lachlan76]

Hate to break it to you, but you're the biggest combating country out there.

We should have invaded you while you were out invading the Middle East ;)

Re:Great...

[king-manic]

Hate to break it to you, but you're the biggest combating country out there.

We should have invaded you while you were out invading the Middle East ;)

And what woudl we get for our trouble? 250 million malcontents who all lean right(some righter then others). A large country of mostly underinformed, mostly apathetic, mostly under educated, service industry workers. Do your really want rush limbaugh? Or Howard Stern? Common theres nothing there worth taking over. Now sweden, and those swedish girls.... theres a reason for invasion.

cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

scram jets could be cheaper because they use surrounding atmosphere to mold a 'virtual nozzle' to direct exhaust. This means less weight, less fuel...

Also, the technology can hypothetically be turned into a radial design. There are descriptions on the net, I'm just to lazy to hunt one down.

Re:cheaper

[Grayraven]

I think you're confusing a scramjet with an aerospike. Scramjets save weight because they use the oxygene in the atmosphere as an oxidizer instead of carrying their own.

I call your bluff, sir

[SuperBanana]

I can point to *many* concrete improvements in our lives due to technological spinoffs from the Space program.

Name a single one that came from:

• Any of the dozens of rocketplanes
• NASA putting astronauts on the moon
• Skylab
• Any of the mars missions
• Putting humans in space, period

Re:I call your bluff, sir

[FatBobSmith]

Tang.

Re:I call your bluff, sir

[Anonymous Coward]

Nearly everyone in the world (including the richest and poorest areas) has benefited greatly from all the satellites we use for communications. They were made possible by technological spinoffs from all the rocketry programs.

Re:I call your bluff, sir

[gilroy]

OK. By the way, this is from less than two minutes of a Google search... it's particularly low-hanging fruit available to anyone who's open enough to actually, you know, look.

"Commercially available infant formulas now contain a nutritional enrichment ingredient that traces its existence to NASA-sponsored research that explored the potential of algae as a recycling agent for long duration space travel." (ref)

Ski wear: "The NASA association began back in the 1970s, when Comfort Products adapted astronaut protective clothing technology to ski boot design. Specifically, the company borrowed heating element circuitry that kept Apollo astronauts warm or cool in the temperature extremes of the Moon, and used it to create built-in rechargeable footwarming devices that were supplied to leading ski boot manufacturers." (ref, emphasis added)

"In 1965, Johnson Space Center contracted with the University of Minnesota to explore the then-known but little-developed concept of impedance cardiography (ICG) as a means of astronaut monitoring. A five-year program led to the development of the Minnesota Impedance Cardiograph (MIC), an electronic system for measuring impedance changes across the thorax that would be reflective of cardiac function and blood flow from the heart's left ventricle into the aorta... the cost of the thermodilution technique [the old, invasive way] runs five to 17 times that of IQ monitoring [the new, NASA-developed way]"(ref)

"GROUND PROCESSING SCHEDULING SYSTEM - Computer-based scheduling system that uses artificial intelligence to manage thousands of overlapping activities involved in launch preparations of NASA's Space Shuttles. The NASA technology was licensed to a new company which developed commercial applications that provide real-time planning and optimization of manufacturing operations, integrated supply chains, and customer orders" (ref)

"STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS - This NASA program, originally created for spacecraft design, has been employed in a broad array of non-aerospace applications, such as the automobile industry, manufacture of machine tools, and hardware designs."(ref)

"SCRATCH-RESISTANT LENSES - A modified version of a dual ion beam bonding process developed by NASA involves coating the lenses with a film of diamond-like carbon that not only provides scratch resistance, but also decreases surface friction, reducing water spots." (ref)

"MICROSPHERES - The first commercial products manufactured in orbit are tiny microspheres whose precise dimensions permit their use as reference standards for extremely accurate calibration of instruments in research and industrial laboratories. They are sold for applications in environmental control, medical research, and manufacturing."(ref)

"SOLAR ENERGY - NASA-pioneered photovoltaic power system for spacecraft applications was applied to programs to expand terrestrial applications as a viable alternative energy source in areas where no conventional power source exists."(ref)

"DIGITAL IMAGING BREAST BIOPSY SYSTEM - The LORAD Stereo Guide Breast Biopsy system incorporates advanced Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) as part of a digital camera system. The resulting device images breast tissue more clearly and efficiently. Known as stereotactic large-core needle biopsy, this nonsurgical system developed with Space Telescope Technology is less traumatic and greatly reduces the pain, scarring, radiation exposure, time, and money associated with surgical biopsies."(

Re:I call your bluff, sir

[mj_1903]

How about any of NASA's R&D to do exactly those things? If I recall correctly, the shape of the wings on many aircraft today are a direct descendant from research that NASA did on aircraft wings. Interestingly you may also not know that NASA found that a wing that was upside down with a small lip on the end was actually the best wing in terms of performance.

Composite structures in aircraft, such as the tail of the 777 or much of the Airbus super jumbo, owe a great deal to NASA's research.

Many new things have been learnt about the human body thanks to NASA research into human behaviour, in areas such as extended stays in isolation, the endurance of the human body and team work.

Many key elements of computers owe a lot to NASA funding miniaturisation for space craft and this has had a run off effect in many areas of human life.

Other posters have mentioned other areas, so I will leave it at that.

Re:I call your bluff, sir

[kindofblue]

Some more things:

• Fuel-cell technology was advanced for use in the space shuttle.
• Great advances were made to make the heat shield for the shuttle. I'm sure the glue (even though imperfect) was a big advance also.
• To get people to Mars and back will require many more breakthroughs, since they will be in space for a few months at least. Problems include developing very efficient energy systems like better solar cells and batteries. They may have to get rocket fuel from the ice on Mars. (I don't know how they would extract the oxygen or hydrogen, but I remember that was a suggestion.) Life support systems will have to recycle everything possible, for food, air, human waste. Shielding would have to be advanced enough to protect from cosmic rays. Some form of human hibernation may eventually be used for very long term human space flight. All of these advances would have great everyday application, such as UV-protection, medicine, clean energy, garbage reduction and efficient recycling, hydrogen fuel production and certainly many many others.
• Oh, and without the manned space program, we probably wouldn't have gotten 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Planet of the Apes, the Alien series, .... Instead we would have had movies about feeding starving children. Who the hell wants to see movies about fields of wheat?

Re:I call your bluff, sir

[ToshiroOC]

Thank you for those comments - I work at NASA/JPL (insert disclaimer, my opinions, not theirs). I looked - out of a $1,400,000,000 budget for our particular center, there was a total of $10,000,000 directly allocated to DoD joint research, and it was in the area of optics (spy sats for them, telescopes for us). NASA is totally not a DoD front - they have no problems just getting the money that they want for themselves without somehow perverting NASA goals. Probably the closest we come to that is letting them use our shuttles to put their satellites in orbit nowadays. Note that I'm totally not an expert (or perhaps not even correctly informed) on the subject, but these are just numbers I remember from poking through the budget.

Re:I call your bluff, sir

[gilroy]

You're welcome. Most people who bash the civilian space program aren't actually interested in hearing what benefits it's brought or how little actual money, in the end, is spent. And they love lumping it with the Department of Defense, ignoring that the DoD has its own very active space program.

I've noticed there's always a progression:

It consumes too much of the federal budget. When that's refuted,

It doesn't produce anything. When that's refuted,

It used to make sense but it doesn't produce anything anymore. When that's refuted,

It doesn't affect me in my daily life. When that's refuted,

The spinoffs (like microwave ovens or ski wear) are too penny-ante, consumer-ish and not worth the money -- not the great nobility of helping humankind. When that's refuted,

The spinoffs (like heart monitors or more reliable chips) are too esoteric and removed from daily life.

What they never admit is

I just don't like it and why can't I be an astronaut too?

oops, 2015 for aircraft not 2010

[Anonymous Coward]

"According to the article scramjet-powered missiles and aircraft could be in mass production as early as 2010."

a literal read of the article (hey i actually read one :)) says that in 2010 the tech will be available for missles and in 2015 for aircraft. here is the quote:

"Demonstrating these technologies, along with additional ground- and flight-test experiments, will pave the way for affordable and reusable air-breathing hypersonic engines for missiles, long-range aircraft, and space-access vehicles around 2010, 2015, and 2025, respectively."

Scramjet never actually tested

[commodoresloat]

There was no scramjet "test." The whole thing was done in a NASA basement, with simulated scramjets-powered aircraft which were made to look like they were being tested. The reality is the tests never happened. Wake up people!

Re:Scramjet never actually tested

[xsupergr0verx]

So that's why I couldn't see it when I looked up in the sky from thousands of miles away.

You oughta work for Fox as disinformation minister. Hell, even Fox News this close to the election.

Re:Scramjet never actually tested

[sketerpot]

The Fox Family Channel seems to take the moon landing hoax theory relatively seriously. Make of that what you will.

Re:Scramjet never actually tested

[Dabido]

NASA are a bit late then. Queensland University already successfully tested a Scramjet on a missle in 2002. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2002/s635772.ht m Or the first one in 2001 which crashed: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1626448.stm Or the latest one in May 18 2004: http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,959349 0%255E15306,00.html Note that the firt successful ground test of a SCRAMJET was done in 1991 by Queensland University. NASA has also done tests on missles. Even though the article may be doing the 'SCRAMJET AIRCRAFT' tests in simulation, a lot of the factual data has already been collected through actual test flights on rockets etc. After all, isn't that one of the powers of computers, feed the data in ... simulate what will happen (to the best of the data's and programs ability). Dabido Osaka ben ga wakara hen.

Zero to 5000 in 10 seconds?

[serutan]

Did I read this right? ...scramjet engine fired for a planned 10-s test, achieving an incredible Mach 7, or 5,000 mph.

It reached 5000 mph in TEN SECONDS? Holy crap, dude!
If this is right I am truly impressed. Could a human passenger survive that acceleration?

Re:Zero to 5000 in 10 seconds?

[Lord Kano]

Not exactly, it was carried atop a regular airplay at several hundred miles per hour, then the rocket booster kicked it up to the cruising altitude and THEN the scramjet engine was engaged for the 10 second burn.

It's damned impressive but it's not like it accellerated to 5000 mph from a standstill.

LK

Re:Zero to 5000 in 10 seconds?

[Sparr0]

That is about 23 Gs. MAYBE a human could survive it, for a mere 10 seconds, with proper cushioning. No way in hell a human could be piloting it at that acceleration.

Re:Zero to 5000 in 10 seconds?

[CaptnMArk]

Perhaps a new class for NHRA :)

Re:Zero to 5000 in 10 seconds?

[mrchaotica]

In addition to Lord Kano's informative response, it should be noted that a scramjet can't operate at a 0 mph (or indeed anything less than supersonic speeds) anyway, by its design. See this post for an explanation. So it was necessarily an acceleration from some supersonic velocity to 5000mph, not from 0 to 5000mph.

you need to get rid of the energy...

[Anonymous Coward]

My thought is:
If you're 'falling' with 11km/s, because that's about the speed needed to at least stay in orbit. How do you think you are going to get rid of this much energy stored in your own mass ?

OR you waste about the same amount of fuel putting you in orbit the first place.
OR you waste it by converting in to heat.

The last solution would be the easiest and most economic one i presume.

What we really need is some gravity repulsion system!!! :)

You utterly miss the point...

[rtilghman]

First off, pure R&D (like the kind that drives actual human development, technological advancement, and industry creation) doesn't often deliver immediate industrial benefits or applications. It is only over time as ideas are refined, enhanced, and evolved that they often find a purpose.

Hell, LOOK AT THE INTERNET. Do you know how much money is literally DUMPED into DARPA every year that doesn't do diddly squat? Yet every so often you get something that just explodes. Do you think the original developers of the DARPAnet said:

"Hey, you know what Chuck? We could have someone right some langauges and abstraction layers on this, like a mark-up language or some kind of hyper-text thing, make a company that allows people to auction off the knick knacks in their attic, and make a fortune! Better yet, we'll create a whole world of ecommerce and REVOLUTIONIZE commerce!"

Evolution, whether industrial or bioligical, is organic in nature and doesn't evolove linearly. Sure, it would be really nice if we could just say "this is where we need to invest x dollars and everything will be OOOOOO-tay", but it would also be nice if we could resolve world piece to a 10 character mathmatical formula.

Think for just ONE MOMENT what life would be like if countries and companies didn't accept the 10% return on their R&D dollars. You wouldn't have 75% of the technology that came out of the industrial revolution and 20th century, you'd have less than HALF the medical advancement AT BEST!

I can easily see how Scramjet technology could make world-wide convenient travel a REAL possibilty in the next 20 years, and given the more sensible economics of fuel with scramjets it would make more sense from a cost basis as well.

BTW, the reason the Concorde was a failure was because supersonic flight based on current engine technology is a pig (eats fuel) and can't make a profit off the people it can carry. If you brought scramjet powered planes capable of hour flights ANYWHERE ON THE GLOBE and could do it on half the fuel I think I can safely say that airline companies would kill each other for it (last CEO standing... GO!).

-rt

Re:You utterly miss the point...

[Cutterman]

Concorde as a "failure" because the sonic boom precluded it overflying land during supersonic flight. The resulting flightpath limitations made it uneconomical. The same problem arises with scramjet powered AC and is essentially insoluble. [Concorde was pretty thirsty too.]

Re:You utterly miss the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus it was a british/french creation, not American, so hurt pride and a good case of "Not Invented Here" helped ensure it was easy to put up a campaign of opposition to concord landing at US airports, so no US carriers bought them, so they remained very pricy and lots of other airlines/airports/aviation authorities thought. If THEY don't want the concord then there must be a good reason.. WE don't want concord either!!!!

What is a scramjet?

[p0]

From the article:
The supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet, uses no rotating parts. In a conventional ramjet, the incoming supersonic airflow is slowed to subsonic speeds by multiple shock waves, created by back-pressuring the engine. Fuel is added to the subsonic airflow, the mixture combusts, and exhaust gases accelerate through a narrow throat, or mechanical choke, to supersonic speeds. By contrast, the airflow in a pure scramjet remains supersonic throughout the combustion process and does not require a choking mechanism, which provides optimal performance over a wider operating range of Mach numbers. Modern scramjet engines can function as both a ramjet and scramjet and seamlessly make the transition between the two.
Get the pdf version here

Why take wings into space?

[Anonymous Coward]

waste of weight.

Old News?

[aussie_a]

I remember hearing about them doing this (or at least something very very similar) on the radio a couple of months ago. And that was Australian radio, I always thought Australia was the last place news reached.

Did they re-do the experiment/is it something new? Or is slashdot the last place news reaches?

Re:Old News?

[donscarletti]

Yep, your right, it was quite a while ago actually.

Re:Old News?

[donscarletti]

Sorry, that was the wrong test I just linked to.
This is the one that actually worked

Re:Old News?

[Planetes]

Actually no, this was a seperate experiment conducted by NASA while the experiment you are referring to was conducted by Australia. Both were scramjet flights, they were totally different designs though. The NASA experiment is the second of 3 flights. The first was aborted due to a failure with the control surfaces on the pegasus booster. The third is upcoming.

A more aesthetic question

[iamdrscience]

Since these engines have no moving parts, does that mean that they would provide a quieter ride for passengers aboard ramjet airplanes? Also, does it even really matter -- is it even a possibility that these would become general use passenger planes? I mean, we have supersonic planes today, but hardly anyone has ever flown in one.

Fuel Availability

[aking137]

According to the article scramjet-powered missiles and aircraft could be in mass production as early as 2010.

That's great! Pity we'll probably be running out of oil to power these things by then.

Re:Fuel Availability

[Richthofen80]

Jimmy Carter called. He wants his scare tactics back.

http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/natural_resour ce s/energy/oil.html

Re:Fuel Availability

[king-manic]

That's great! Pity we'll probably be running out of oil to power these things by then.

Considering Canada has ~3.0 Trillion barrels of oil, with a pretty minimial exploitation of most fo that. I'm certain we'll be okay for at least the rest of my natural life. Saudi arabia only has ~300 billion barrels. After your don'e raping the middle east. Head up and exploit your neighbors to the north. Be nice or we'll burn your white house down again.

Re:Fuel Availability

[beanluc]

"I'm certain we'll be okay for at least the rest of my natural life"

That's the spirit. Way to think of the next generations.

As long as you're doing something with your life, go ahead and keep advocating for burning 10 times more carbon than would be possible if we didn't keep going after Saudi Arabia's last drop.

Do you think that the 3 trillion barrels will help us avoid a climate crisis, maybe in our own lifetimes, by being put to use running BIG FUC*ING AIRCONDITIONERS? Which would have to shed the heat they collect to, I don't know, like, THE MOON or someplace?

Re:Fuel Availability

[beanluc]

All that says is it will get too expensive to use up the oil.

Not a good challenge to the idea that we won't be able to fuel the scramjets later. When oil is a billion dollars a barrel (in 2004 dollars) will YOU enjoy the tax increase necessary to permit NASA to fly these?

Well? Willya? PUNK?

Re:Fuel Availability

[king-manic]

That's the spirit. Way to think of the next generations.

As long as you're doing something with your life, go ahead and keep advocating for burning 10 times more carbon than would be possible if we didn't keep going after Saudi Arabia's last drop.

Do you think that the 3 trillion barrels will help us avoid a climate crisis, maybe in our own lifetimes, by being put to use running BIG FUC*ING AIRCONDITIONERS? Which would have to shed the heat they collect to, I don't know, like, THE MOON or someplace?


lol. Talk about a alarmist. What it means is, we have around 60-100 years to find alternate fuels. Something like Biodiesel or clean fusion. Even then, we'll need the oil to derive other hydro carbons(ie plastic) which will be an essential part of any alternate fuel strategy. One thign we coudl do is slap a tax on SUV's and make them less desirable by rating their fuel economy accuratly. for instance, the honda pruis has an insane MPG rating. however it may be off by as much as 30% because the rating board uses non-relaistic tests. But, SUV's also consume more then listed. By as much as 30%. showing the true numbers would deter some. Taxes woudl deter others. And a co-ordinated change in attitudes towards those monstrous wastes woudl help. But beign an alarmist doesn't help.

Re:Fuel Availability

[vtolturbo]

It's Toyota Prius. I have one, and I love it. It cost a lot, but it's still cheaper than the SUVs that use 4x more fuel and produce substantially more pollution. Well, SUVs are great and actually are more fuel efficient when transporting a full load than other vehicles, but the SUV owners don't use them in this way, so they're wasting a lot of fuel. Honda has two hybrids on the market in America - Insight (2-seater pure hybrid), and Civic (4-seater sedan with a hybrid option). I'm very interested to see how long it takes before people (not just small pockets, but more globally) start believing in LENR-CANR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions - Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions) http://lenr-canr.org/ ... known to the layman as cold fusion, which has been shown to produce anomalous surplus energy in over 1000 experiments since 1989.

cool...

[zxflash]

interesting read, if anybody is looking for more info nasa has a good writeup on scramjets...

NASA - What's a Scramjet?

Higher Mach means less fuel efficient ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... perfect engine for the 2010 $100-a-barrell
overpopulated world...

Unless you use it for depopulation of some oil-rich or oil-consuming regions ...

Applications?

[iamdrscience]

I think these are very cool, but I really have to wonder about the practical applications of these. I'm not saying that research into them should be stopped, I think this is definitely an area were further research is warranted, rather I'm just curious about where this technology might be going. The most practical use I can think of off the top of my head is missles because the faster missles move, the harder it is to intercept them. Beyond that though, I'm mostly drawing a blank in regards to truly useful applications.

Re:Applications?

[leeward]

If you have ever spent 14 hours on a plane flying between the US and Asia, I think you will realize a good use for them, assuming the cost can be made reasonable. I considered the flight to be rather excruciating, and one I am not ready to repeat anytime soon.

Assuming that space elevators never work, this might also be the only method available for making space accessible to someone at a cost of under $10M

Re:Applications?

[iamdrscience]

Well, that's what I'm saying, there are supersonic planes now that could shorten a flight between the U.S. and Asia to maybe a few hours, but yet we do not use this technology because of the cost. Would these new engines be any different? Wouldn't they be similarly or more expensive than current supersonic planes and thus similarly underutilized?

Security concerns

[britneys 9th husband]

As cool as it would be to fly from New York to Tokyo in 90 minutes, I wonder if anyone has thought about the security concerns related to passenger jets that can travel 10,000 mph. Often during events like the Super Bowl or political oonventions, they'll put up a no-fly zone around a 5 or 10 mile radius so the military has time to shoot down any threatening aircraft. Problem is, at 10k mph, you can cover 1,000 miles in just 6 minutes. Does this mean all air travel in the entire Northeast would need to be shut down during the Republican convention in NYC? What kind of a no-fly zone would be needed around Washington, DC?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for advancing technology, I just wonder how we would be able to handle a world where a terrorist flying a stolen or hijacked aircraft over Chicago could be less than 5 minutes from the White House.

Re:Security concerns

[schneidafunk]

You have to consider how hard it would be for a terrorist to take over a plane if it only takes a couple of minutes to fly from one destination to another. By the time you get up to attack the pilot, you've already landed!

Re:Security concerns

[Araneas]

Ek=1/2m*v^2
Next time they won't need full fuel tanks to maximize the damage.

Re:Security concerns

[Ashe Tyrael]

I suppose it depends. From what some of these articles have been saying, the scramjets need a stonkingly high altitude to actually work properly. Then too, at those speeds, if they weren't that high up, air-friction would melt the aircraft. If, by some chance, somebody did hijack a scramjet-equipped plane, they'd first have to get up to speed, which means going high. Then they'd have to come back down again. Chances are, if they didn't want to vapourise the plane, and defeat the object of crashing it into, say, the white house, they'd have to slow down, by which point theyre getting back into the realms where the craft can still be intercepted.

Anybody who knows anything about aircraft want to check that one over for flaws and loopholes?

Re:Security concerns

[Oswald]

Good question. Now just keep repeating it to yourself, while you silently mouth the phrase "range safety officer." When you feel the chill run down your spine, you'll know you got the right answer.

Our kids are going to live in an interesting world.

Re:Security concerns

[Whyte]

Actually, if scramjet technology eventually finds it's way into commercial aviation, it will probably already be in Surface-to-Air missile technology.

As a result, your "to target" interception times and ranges will probably improve considerably. The only real issue would probably be concerning how far the wreckage would travel after it is blown-up while travelling at 5000 MPH (ie having to expand your "no fly" range so that potentual wreckage falls in non-populated areas).

Air as a medium compared to space

[schneidafunk]

I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I do remember in physics that planes go 'up' by the lift compenent. This is dependent on creating a low pressure area above the wing.
However, I've often wondered how the physics change when you are approaching space and the air thins. Wings become less useful. This is evident with our hilarious looking space shuttles. We strap a bus onto 2 gigantic fuel sources, which don't rely on the lift compenent of regular planes and scram jets.

Re:Air as a medium compared to space

[DaveVoorhis]

Planes do NOT go 'up' because of low pressure above the wing. Otherwise, how would they fly upside down? An entertaining explanation is found at http://www.jefraskin.com/forjef2/jefweb-compiled/p ublished/coanda_effect.html

Re:Air as a medium compared to space

[schneidafunk]

very interesting link, thanks for the info.

Thats a big...

[Anonymous Coward]

23Gs? That would really, really suck. A 150lb dude (average /.er, soaking wet) would be slammed into his seat with like three and a half TONS of force. Anyone want to go take the tires off their car and then lay under it for 10 seconds? Let us know how you feel afterwards, ok? Thanks!

And even if you were in the center of a 6 foot ball of bubble wrap, I doubt your organs would survive the punishment. A three pound (2% of 150) brain? 70lbs in your skull. Would your heart even beat when it felt like 17lbs?

But I suppose we should look at the bright side. At least at 23Gs you could claim to have a 10lb penis!

"Hey baby... this one time..."


(Hmm, better post this AC...)

Re:Thats a big...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up!

Bloody funny!!!

Re:Thats a big...

[Anonymous Coward]

And the best part is you titled you post "Thats a bit"

RTA before posting sarcastic comments, my friend

[benjaminchoate]

"With the completion of the successful X-43A flight and the ground-testing of several full-sized demonstration engines, confidence in the viability of the hydrogen- and hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet engines has increased significantly. NASA plans to launch another X-43A this fall and fly it at Mach 10, or 6,750 mph."

If you had read the article you would see that they can apparently also run on hydrogen, and that, unless I am mistaken, it is the fuel of choice because of its greater efficiency.

"Propulsion efficiency decreases with speed as we progress through turbojets to ramjets and scramjets to rockets; hydrogen is more efficient than jet fuel."

Re:RTA before posting sarcastic comments, my frien

[Anonymous Coward]

just where do you think most hydrogen comes from?

it's not brought by hydrogen fairies, you know.

Very interesting technology

[Lisandro]

I just gave the article a read; very neat stuff. No moving parts for (basically) a very fast jet engine is nice. Also, it's possible to use hydrogen as fuel. Neat.

What i wonder is how feasible will it be to use in a passanger plane. The engine needs to have air fed in at Mach 3, and the article suggests using rockets. Those would need to be insanely big; and if you use a separate, "conventional" engine to reach that airspeed the aircraft becomes too complex.

Re:Very interesting technology

[Birger Johansson]

Unfortunately, a scramjet will be of little use without heat-resistent materials that will allow you to design a streamlined spaceplane . The shuttle is blunt and "tubby" because this way the hot plasma fireball is kept ahead off the nose, but it creates very high drag.
The more streamlined you make the spaceplane, the less drag, but also the more heating at the "sharp" nose and wings. Today's ceramic materials are way too brittle, and today's metal alloys would quickly melt.

Reusable engines for missiles !

[Barryke]

From article, the last paragraph:
Demonstrating these technologies, along with additional ground- and flight-test experiments, will pave the way for affordable and reusable air-breathing hypersonic engines for missiles, long-range aircraft, and space-access vehicles around 2010, 2015, and 2025, respectively.

Uhh? "demonstrating..reusable..engines for missiles" ?

Are we talking 'homing nuke' ?

Re:Reusable engines for missiles !

[lachlan76]

A scramjet could take it most of the way, drop off, and for the last X km it could be powered by conventional rockets.

The important thing is whether it's worth the effort to go and pick up missile engines from a hostile nation. I think not.

Re:Reusable engines for missiles !

[Lisandro]

At those speeds, you could even drop the engine and have the payload fly by itself to it's target, a-la-ballistic missile. If it's fast enough, you wouldn't even need explosives.

Re:Reusable engines for missiles !

[gusgizmo]

Damn, I can see how that would save alot of money. Build a reusable engine, then destroy it on the first run. Hmm. . . I think I have a new oxymoron: reusable nuke.

Re:Reusable engines for missiles !

[horza]

Uhh? "demonstrating..reusable..engines for missiles" ?

Are we talking 'homing nuke' ?

I don't think anything attached to a nuke could be termed reusable.

Phillip.

The order of possible applications... Just great!

[silverdr]

"Scramjets will enable three categories of hypersonic craft: weapons, such as cruise missiles; aircraft, such as those designed for global strike and" [... possibly other unimportant bullshit applications... ] So isn't it just great that soon people will be able to kill other people with hypersonic Mach12 speed?!

Have these been around for awhile now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we had these at least 15 yrs ago. I remember being in my early teens, when I was going through the phase of being obsessed with military jets etc, seeing on a video or tv a scramjet in flight. I don't remember what it was on but I do remember the distinctive sound it made. It made very rapid popping sounds or explosions.

Military spending

[sean.peters]

We spend more on defense per capita than the next top three nations combined- do you realize that includes North Korea, widely considered to be a "military state"?

The next three nations? Try the next ten: spending comparison link (sorry, a pdf)

Sean

Re:Military spending

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you stupid?
Do you know how to read?

The link you provided shows that the USA spends more total than the next 10 nations combined. It doesn't say anything about per-capita spending. In fact, if you look at it, the USA ranks 49th in terms of percent-GDP expenditure in your figures.

"a quieter ride"

[da5idnetlimit.com]

well, a scramjet will take you from an initial Mach 2-3 to the expected mach 7-10+ this technolgy is meant to achieve...

So you will still enjoy all the noise of the starting point up to mach 1, then have a nice, quiet acceleration to mach 2-3, and then suddenly leave all sound you produce about 500-600 feet behind you, instead of just the 70 feet sound buble displacement you enjoy at mach 3.

the whole point is that to you it will be quite silencious...but it really have to be made in high altitude...

If you were to engage the scramjet at low altitude (say launched as a missile from a mach 2.4 fighting plane) just the sound wave decelerating from the missile at low altitude would be sufficient to damage any building within a 2 mile radius...not to mention deafening a few tousand people.

Then, on impact, I think you can dispense with unstable/dangerous explosive...
you just need some hyperdense material at the tip, say 5 kg depleted uranium.

Now, if you caculate the inertia of 5 kg at mach 7-25, you will find it's a very damaging little kinetic monster you just created.

after all, the FIRST implementation of that thing is to be a missile in 2010-2015...so lets see what the probable effects will be...

E=mv^2

5000grams*(330m/s*(mach 7 to 25))^2

5000*(5336100 to 68062500)
26 680 500 000 to 340 312 500 000 Joules at impact...seems quite an energy dissipation problem...for the target, I mean 8p

my physics class is quite old now, feel free to privide the right formula or to correct me on any point... 8)

I forgot to add in the missile weight...

[da5idnetlimit.com]

I just took the weight of an hyperdense penetration tip that would survive the umpact itsef...

feel free to caculate with the added mass of the whole missile, dunno, say 500kg to one ton 8)

really?

[Kurayamino-X]

i was under the impression that .au did the first scramjet test that wasn't bolted to a table. was built mostly off the shelf, although, the only way they could get it to go fast enough to fire the engine was to point it straight down and accelerate. but it did work for a few short moments before cratering. however, i'm pretty sure the USA got the first scramjet going that moved horizontally and not straight down. but it cost a hell of a lot more and blew up on launch the first try. i'd look up some links, but it's 2am and i really can't be stuffed.

It's not a bug, it's a fe_ature

[beanluc]

to avoid the page-widening effects of certain trolls or URL posters.

Re:It's not a bug, it's a fe_ature

[qualico]

Seriously?

That should go into the FAQ.
Otherwise, I'll have to get off my lazy but and code html responses instead.

Sure would be nice to have a plugin to check spelling and code html on the fly in the slashdot window.

Ok, ok...I know your going to tell me to cut and paste. :-)

did the program end....

[zogger]

...or did they just say that and transfer it to black projects? There's too much scuttlebutt out there over Aurora and Brilliant Buzzard to ignore it, IMO. Andf I also just plain don't believe they aren't (or haven't already) developing successors to the SR71 and the B2. I don't think there's ever been a time they WEREN'T always a generation or two ahead of what they admit to publically. But maybe they just ...stopped, and nothing is secret anymore. That's more or less what they want us to believe, the only thing lately they admit to with some decent info is unmanned aircraft of various kinds mostly and this nasa stuff.

Basically, I have always considered NASA to be a military program gussied up to make it look civilian, I think the space race has always been of a primary military interest for them. Just my opinion on it.

do we really need it?

[zogger]

What's that suborbital 90 minute flight you want going to cost? any idea? I seem to remember concorde flights were like 1500$, but I could be wrong on that.

Yesterday, crude went to what, 48$ and change? What will it be in ten years time with quadruple the demand, which is what most of the projections I have read indicate, and after ten years more extraction of what we have left now?

My point is, it might be technically possible, but outside of a few rich people, who's going to be taking these flights in ten years or twenty years?

Personally, I think they should put all this higher/faster stuff on the back burner and work instead on where the next centuries worth of cleaner burning fuel is going to come from. I'm as much of a proponent of alternative energy as the next guy, but people just mumbling "hydrogen" ain't making it happen. And frankly, I don't see any plane carrying a compressed hydrogen tank, or being able to carry much if they need two or three kinds of engines in order to travel.

It's like ...hmm, to be a bit whacky about it but "the personal submarine". Sure it's technologically possible and there's a limited small market for them now, but it's still a rich guys toy or only for a niche industry. Hypersonic transport I don't really see being as adopted as normal jet transport is now, it's just going to be way too expensive. I think they could build the machines, but they won't be affordable for 99.99999% of the human race to be able to use, so then you have to ask yourself why would they develop them, and why should everyone else pay to subsidise the devlopment and implementation. My thought in a nutshell is fuel first, then figure out new exciting ways to use the fuel. Right now we are only one generation away from *severe* global reduction in quality of life from the sheer lack of petroleum that is coming. I think we as humans need a better list of priorities.

Re:do we really need it?

[jericho4.0]

A bit more than $1500. A one way, buisness class ticket, NY to London costs ~$4000 U.S. today, booked a month in advance.

Don't kid yourself.

[TenderMuffin]

The SR-71 didn't need missile defense because it could outfly any missile headed its way.

I assume there are faster missiles out there, but THAT fast? I don't think anything could catch this.

Airlines NOT getting bailed out

[jgardn]

Most people don't like missiles, but access-to-space vehicles that operate at incredible altitudes are very useful. We have a lot of very useful satellites up there, and these "space planes" could make those satellites a lot cheaper. But you do have a point on the airline industry. The Feds waste endless sums of money bailing out companies that fail to innovate and offer infamously poor service, and then the feds turn around and regulate them into the ground to prevent terrorism. Flying, which was once a decadent luxury, is now a painful ordeal. The airline CEO's are riding a gold mine of federal bailout money while the taxpayers get screwed.

Sounds like you should cast your vote for Bush. He has repeatedly refused to bailout the airline and rail industries. The Republicans aren't into that corporate corruption and corporate welfare thing. Why do you think Enron, Anderson, and others are getting prosecuted now and not during the Clinton years, when they were at their heyday?

The Democrats talk a lot about how the Republicans are the party of the rich and how they are 100% behind the corporations. I have news for you. The richest senators are Democrats, not Republicans. Heck, John Kerry and co is worth more than ten times what Bush and co is worth! And the Republicans are all for letting wasteful, poorly managed companies take a dive to leave room for new, young, vibrant companies. The Democrats will do anything to keep their buddies' companies alive.

Where do the Republican's principle donations and loyalties lie? With homeowners and small business people. Why do you think that they are pursuing cutting the income tax for the highest wage earners? Because the highest wage

• earners

are those who are

• becoming

rich, not who are already rich. These are the small business people who finally get their break and are expanding their business to meet the demand. And the Republicans are pursuing to cut the death tax because it hurts the small business owners who don't have a team of fifty lawyers and accountants on hand to setup trust funds to make sure their cash gets into their childrens hands.

Democrats talk up a storm - but what have they done for the little guy? Look at their real record, and you'll see they're all about keeping the money in the hands of the rich, preventing others from getting rich, and keeping the poor man on the dole. This runs right along with their historic racist and tyrannical attitudes, which still persist with current members of the Senate. (The only member of the senate that is also a part of the KKK is Senator Robert Byrd, a democrat.)

Remember, the first and only man to strike another on the floor of the Senate was a democrat. And it was over slavery and the fact that the democrat didn't want to give it up, even though the overwhelming public opinion both north and south of the Mason-Dixie line was against the democrats. The democrats started the civil war by firing on federal soldiers. The democrats enforced segregation. It wasn't until the Republicans were able to regain some power in the senate and house that segregation was ended.

So if you are against corporate welfare and you think that corrupt corporate leaders should get jailtime, vote Bush and Republican.

Mark this flamebait. I know you guys hate hearing the truth. It drives the democrats nuts because they can't refute it, so instead they try to shut us up and prevent us from exercising our right to free speech.

Re:Airlines NOT getting bailed out

[Anonymous Coward]

freemasons run the country

Re:Airlines NOT getting bailed out

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a lunatic. Is there any topic that won't set you off on a Democrat-hating binge of silliness?

Oh, and I'm sure you're disappointed that you weren't "censored" by the moderators. At least they gave you what you deserved... Too bad there isn't a "+1 wacko" option, you sure would have earned it.

Re:Airlines NOT getting bailed out

[glassesmonkey]

I know .. IHBT .. and your only goal is to troll people, but I do feel you should at least lie about things that are not so obviously wrong. I do "hate hearing the truth" when it comes from liars and trolls. (I'm also glad you *are* on Bush's side)

Enron timelines
Enron wasn't that big before Bush's term and didn't start breaking the law until they got help from their Texas buddies. Look at their stock prices and decline. Enron restated financials and went under after 2001.

Enron and Kenneth Lay each donated $100,000 to incoming President Bush's inaugural committee fund, early in 2001. The incoming president invited Mr Lay to become and advisor to his transition team.

Mr Lay and other Enron directors met Mr Cheney and others three times in the first half of the year, the last meeting a month before he published his conclusions on 17 May 2001.

Sept. 10, 2000: Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay contributes more than $290,000 to George W. Bush's election campaign.

As to "Democrats will do anything to keep their buddies' companies alive".. you might want to scroll back up and re-read it again. And don't forget Governor Bush's proclaimation making an official day in June known as "Jesus Day"

Scramjets are just a fad.

[Stephen Samuel]

Just you wait.. They'll pass by quicker than most.

What about HiFlight?

[vtolturbo]

This article is claiming that NASA was the first to -do- the experiments, but when I graduated from University of Maryland last year, there was a lot of excitement in the aerospace department about the Australian HiFlight experiment, where they actually -did- the experiment successfully, for around $5 million, compared to NASA's failed experiment a few months prior, which crashed into the Pacific Ocean, wasting a phenomenal $300 million. Let's compare.

Five bright guys from Australia acquire funding from venture capitalists and government grants to test the same basic principle, using a simpler (and thus less error-prone) experimental approach, and achieve almost a full minute of raw data.

A few hundred people at NASA stretch their budget, rush through a test that is ill-designed, and fail miserably, acquiring no useful data because the test was aborted before the engine was even engaged.

It seems to me that this is just further evidence that small teams of talented and experienced people are driven to do more with less money. With all those employees wasting time all over the place, it's no surprize they fail. It's no wonder NASA's budget has dwindled so much. The governments need to put more money into private industry, where the real magic happens. I pay taxes. Don't I have the right to contribute to the decision of how that money is spent?

Simple

[appleLaserWriter]

Just build a network of penumatic tubes across the country. Run the jets inside the tubes.

you mean HyShot

[GestapoAlbatross]

yup, nasa is a little behind the boat on this one. Hyshot is all my engineering professors talked about all 2002. http://www.time.com/time/2002/inventions/tra_scram jet.html Goes to show that a little country can compete with the big guys. Look at the Olympics.

private hands

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not put space into private hands? Burt rutan showed it could be done for less than US$5 for the spaceship and for about 5G a flight. Given the proper incentives he or someone like him-even you...could build and operate a ship capable of putting the next man on the moon.

Skipping Stones

[c4miles]

There's a theory that you can shed orbital velocity by 'skimming' off the atmosphere - entering a slight atmosphere, burning off some velocity through friction, while generating lift to leave the atmosphere again and dissipate heat at a more leisurely pace. This reduces the total amount of energy to lose when final re-entry is started.

Fast and loose with those stats

[rk]

Spending more on defense per capita has nothing to do with being a military state. North Korea's militaty expenditures as percent of GDP are way higher that the US statistic.

Hell, I bought a handgun once during a year I had practically no income. By your definition, I was a military state in 1986.