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

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

[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).

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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' ?

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?!

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

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.