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Space Plane to Offer 2 Hour Flight around the World
secretsather writes "Two hour flights to the other side of the world may seem like a scene from a science fiction movie; but the technology is in place, and a plane that can do just that is currently in development. While it looks like a scene from a flight simulator, the Astrox space plane is the real deal, and the Astrox Corporation says it could revolutionize the transportation industry. Traveling as fast as Mach 25 with at least 30 minutes of space shuttle-like views while in orbit is the highlight of this plane, and The Astrox Corporation, along with their partners, are claiming to have finally overcome their largest problem, mixing fuel."
Sure the fight may last only 2 hours, but after spending much of that time in heavy acceleration, I wonder how long it would take to recover. Also, wouldn't passengers need to be in really good health to endure such a journey, and would they need to wear flight suits like fighter pilots just to keep from blacking out? I suspect that regular passenger use may be out of the question if these problems aren't solved by altitude/weightlessness.
Wikipedia's entry for Scramjet mentions
Scram jets might be able to accelerate from approximately Mach 5-7 to around somewhere between half of orbital velocity and orbital velocity (X-30 research suggested that Mach 17 might be the limit compared to an orbital speed of Mach 25, and other studies put the upper speed limit for a pure scram jet engine between Mach 10 and 25, depending on the assumptions madeAs the company claims a top speed of Mach 25, could this be the 'cheap' way to get to low Earth orbit?
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
That would bring me back to this stinking, shitty, damp, miserable, yob infested, backwards, cold, poor, tacky, cretin filled swamp. Can they drop me off half way please?
Beep beep.
Their new college intern probably solved this problem for them. Beer before liquor, never been sicker... now, OTOH, liquor before beer...
Two hour flights to the other side of the world may seem like a scene from a science fiction movie;
At this point in my life, mating seems like science fiction let alone flying around the world in a space plane.
wasn't the vaporware story posted earlier today ... if
this wasn't on the list it should be. Some preliminary
tests of scramjets have been done. Very preliminary. Not
by these guys.
Scramjets are the "fusion" of aircraft research. Always 10-20 years away. I'll believe it when I see something flying.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
A Congressman reads and posts on Slashdot! Who'd have figured...?
1/2 hour - drive to space-port
2.0 hours - security/checkin
1/2 hours - sit on space-plane tarmac
2.0 hours - flight
1/2 hour - baggage claim
1/2 hour - drive from space-port
I actually thought about this a while ago, when I read on Wikipedia that in a trans-atlantic abort, the space-shuttle would take only twenty-minutes from SSME ignition to touchdown in Europe or Africa. I pointed out to a friend of mine that it would probably cost on the order of half a billion dollars (space shuttle launch is approximately 500 million dollars, plus a million or so to fly it back via 747 to Kennedy), and my friend pointed out that in quite a few cases, it might well be worth it- a milti-billion dollar merger, a head of state's emergency meeting, etc, etc.
If the space shuttle launched more frequently, of course, the launch costs would decrease significantly and make it even more economically viable.
This has been a long time in coming- suborbital flight hops are damned fast, and even if it does cost a million bucks a ride, I'm sure there'll be plenty of customers willing to use it.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Prior 9/11; two hours pre-flight, eight hours in flight, half hour at the other end : 10.5 hours.
Post 9/11; four hours pre-flight, eight hours in flight, one hour at the other end : 13 hours
Hyperdrive; four hours pre-flight, two hours in flight, one hour at the other end : 7 hours.
Pre-flight security bloatware, god-dammit. I upgrade my plane so it's four times faster and I'm still only 50% better off than I was originally!
That picture is awesome. Reminds me of Elite II. I just hope they didn't forget to buy atmospheric shielding.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
The article didn't appear to mention acceleration. I'm sure it would be impractical for any mass transport system to accelerate too quickly. However it is entirely possible to have a very fast flight without unreasonable acceleration forces placed on the human body (smacking into another object excepted).
As for the jetlag issue, is it any worse than getting up 6am during the work days, and partying until 6am on weekends? That to me is the more serious jetlag issue! Transcontinental flight has never been that much different for me.
Well, let's see. x=(a t^2) / 2. Let's say a = 3.2 ft/sec^2 (1/10 g), so we're not talking real heavy acceleration here. t = 1 hour = 3600 seconds. (We'll use the other hour to decelerate.) Then...
x = 20,736,000 feet = 3927 miles. The whole, two hour flight would be 7854 miles. Not quite halfway around the world (12000 miles).
To do halfway around the world in 2 hours, we need to get 6000 miles = 31,680,000 feet, accelerating from zero, in 1 hour = 3600 seconds. For that, we need a = 2x / t^2 = 4.89 ft / sec^2 = 0.15 g.
Whether that's too much to be comfortable or healthy, I don't know.
The real problems with scramjets and ramjets have been that the engine (and the vehicle) need to be brought to a speed where the ramjets can operate.
I'm sure many of you have seen videos of those German V-1 buzzbombs launched by the Germans during World War II. The reason for those launchers was to get those ramjets to operational speed -- For a ramjet to work, it must have airflow. Without it, the engine just won't light.
Scramjets are just an extension of the ramjet where the airflow within the engine is at supersonic speeds. A scramjet cannot fire unless the vehicle is brought to supersonic speeds. The NASA tests of the X-43 were conducted by first carrying the X-43 mated with a rocket up to 43,000 ft by the B-52 bomber, then dropping the rocket which carries the X-43 up to 100,000 ft and accelerates it to over Mach 6, and finally the X-43 lights its scramjets and accelerates to Mach 10.
The real problem is bringing the scramjet up to the required speeds for operation. The real revolution to space travel or suborbital travel is to achieve a single-stage-to-orbit(SSTO) system, where one doesn't need multiple stages (B-52 mothership, Pegasus rocket, etc.) in order to complete the trip.
Jetlag isn't about acceleration per se - it's about desynchronization of your circadian clock with that of your surroundings.
I can get you jet lagged by putting you in an isolation suite and resetting the clock you pay attention to, no acceleration involved.
That being said, the human body takes about a day to resynchronize from a shift of an hour.
I suppose you need to accelerate to get that far that fast if you do it by travel, but you can put away the equations that figure the precise acceleration of this plane to discuss jet lag.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Will enough people really want to spend $100K or so to travel halfway around the world in 2 hours vs. 20? After the novelty of going into space wears off for the rich, I see this as being about as exciting (and economically feasible) as the Concorde.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
I'm actually interested to see if the rough-and-tumble in the boardroom starts to spill out into the streets, a proxy war fought by mercenaries, hurting corporations where they're most vulnerable -- the bank account and their reputations.
To me, it's absolutely uncanny how dead-on he was about the changes to society the future would bring. The only thing I'd disagree about with his insight is how long it would take for things to fall apart -- IMHO he was an optimist.
Marco...that was Portugese.
I assume you're talking about the UK, based on terminology and your URL.
A big difference between the UK and the USA is that in the latter, most people think it's the greatest place on earth (usually those who've never lived anywhere else), and it isn't; in the UK most think it's a shithole (usually those who've never lived anywhere else), and it isn't. At a certain point your miserable attitude becomes self-fulfilling. You should actually try hopping to the other side of the world and see how much they enjoy the company of whinging poms.
I used to love this old ride called The Gravitron. There's a similar one out there called SpacShip 2000. It's a big flying-saucer looking thing with foam pads all around the insides nd no restraints or anything. Passangers stand with their backs against the pads and the ride spins them up to slightly above 1g for roughly three minutes. I'm here to tell ya, even that isn't uncomfortable. It didn't require especially fit people to go on this ride. It didn't even have a height or age requirement. Sure it was short, but it always felt to me (twice a year until I was 12) that it could've gone on quite forever. It would've gotten rather boring, though. I don't see how 0.15g could be a big deal when 1.1g is literally child's play.
Nasa X-43A Scramjet (With videos) - First flew in 2004
First successful scramjet (2001) (With video)
More out there. Of course, none of these have launched under their own power, yet. But the scramjet concept certainly works.
The Astrox Corporation does not seem to have updated their web site recently, but the latest bit on their news page (Nov.05) is a contract from ATK/GASL (NASA's co-developers of the X-43A) "to study turbine/scramjet combined cycle cruise vehicles (X43C)"
This may be the real deal. Hard to say.
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
I like the idea of an evacuated maglev tunnel. It's still unrealistic (a tunnel from NY to LA would cost $1 trillion), although, the cost is all in the construction.
The V-1 actually used a pulsejet, not a ramjet. Pulsejets have been built that work when stationary (some R/C aircraft use them as a substitute for a turbojet or ducted fan), and their maximum speed (Wikipedia says the V-1 reached 390mph) is about that at which many ramjet designs start working.
yep, pretty close, he's been my fav for nailing the future. Look at major cities, areas akin to the AAs, abandoned areas, offset by guarded gated compounds or "communities". Look at the war in iraq, there are now almost as many "private security contractors"-mercenaries- as there are official US government military people.
c le/2006/12/04/AR2006120401311_pf.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
And we saw what happend in NOLA after katrina, it got infested with rifle totin Blackwater goons immediately, while non-corporate regular plain vanilla citizens got their self protection tools confiscated, just when they needed them the most.
Yep, I'd say corporate fascism is taking over quite rapidly. Our so called vote is now all privately run where it really counts. They may stick their voting boxes in a public building, but after that point it's for-profit corporate closed source voting. And the rest of government is run as an extension of various multinational corporations via their sock puppets-who got there from the previous closed source corporate voting and propoganda build up from the controlled corporate press.
I used to love this old ride called The Gravitron
You mean the Vomitron.
Here's a schematic.
Can get i get front page of slashdot now? :D
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
If this plane is so real, why is the only evidence a 3d rendering that looks like it was done with an Apple IIGS?
(this is offended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Doesn't suborbital flight still take you out of a significant percentange of earths natural cosmic radiation sheild? Isn't that a problem for people who may want to have kids, or whatever? Maybe 2 hours exposure isn't enough to matter, but if you fly often enough, I'd think you'd still be affected.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
Thrust isn't the issue here, the problem is getting the combustor to work at any speed above mach 1. Various existing planes go supersonic with engines that slow down the supersonic airstream before using it for combustion. This works, to a point. Past a certain point, the pressure and heat build up and either melt or explode the engine. On the Blackbird, for example, bypasses are built into the engine to vent a good portion of the air from the compressor; slowing down a mach 3 airstream creates so much heat and pressure that it would melt the titanium engine. To get to the high mach numbers mentioned, the engine needs to maintain supersonic flow throughout. Getting fuel to mix into a supersonic flow and burn at a given spot is tricky, and it's the current focus of scramjet research. These folks are using a mach 2 wind tunnel because the main issue is that the air is going supersonic, not exactly how supersonic it is going, and generating a mach 10 airstream to test in would be pretty blasted expensive.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
This sounds like a plea for investors. I wonder if they'll split with a suitcase full of cash for Costa Rica or Brazil?
Also, wouldn't passengers need to be in really good health to endure such a journey, and would they need to wear flight suits like fighter pilots just to keep from blacking out?
Not really. The space shuttle is in orbit at 5 miles/second about 8 1/2 minutes after liftoff, and it's maximum G forces are limited to 3 G's, something akin to a terrestrial roller coaster. If you listen during a launch, you can hear the commentator mention towards the end of ascent that the main engines are throttling back. They do that to avoid exceeding the 3 G limit when the external tank is almost empty. The Russian Soyuz has an even gentler ride, IIRC.
The suits the astronauts are wearing are pressure suits, not G suits. They don't do anything to counter G forces, they are only there for if the cabin has a depressurization. In fact, pre Challenger they stopped wearing the suits for a time and just went up in cloth flight suits.
The days of spaceflight being limited to fighter pilot types who can take 9 G's was over in the 70s. Most modern manned launchers are fairly easy rides to orbit.
Worst...sig...ever!
The discussion might have been a lot better if the article (or rather the blog entry) weren't so sorely lacking in details. Kind of makes me miss Roland Piquepaille. You can get a lot more information by Googling "suborbital airliner."
The blogger suggests that this vehicle is basically a very fast airliner, but this is far from the case. It's a sub-orbital craft that would fly on a parabolic course, thrusting up out of the atmosphere and then coasting the rest of the way. What makes it economically feasible is that a brief, steep climb uses less energy than horizontally plowing through the atmosphere for hours. Most proposed designs use a two-stage launching system. One calls for the airliner to climb to about 50,000 feet and do a midair refueling from a tanker. In another the airliner is carried up by a larger plane and released. In either case the airliner then goes into a steep climb for about 20 minutes and then shuts off its engines, coasting until it nears its destination. It would carry only enough fuel to maintain a holding pattern in case of airport traffic.
Passengers would be strapped into their seats for the entire flight. No food or beverage service, no restrooms. People most likely will take some sort of medication to avert motion sickness, as they would be weightless for much of the flight. There is a lot of research going into the human factors such as the several Gs acceleration and dealing with weightlessness. The bit about space-shuttle views of Earth kind of mystified me, because in all the designs I've read about there would be no windows. Maybe they were talking about view-screens.
It's a pretty interesting subject, and almost certainly will be the way we will fly long distances in 20 or 30 years.
Would you like to stop as well?
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
wake me when it's flying.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
I really doubt that this thing is going to take off (ha ha, pun) in the near future for two reasons.
First, scramjets have been talked about forever. No one has yet to do anything more interesting then blow up a few scramjet drones and waste millions. Certainly we are going to get it 'right' at some point, but I am deeply skeptical that it is going to be in the near future. Even if it was in the near future, I am even more skeptical that it would be cost effective enough to operate as a commercial airliner for such a small nitch market.
Second, who the fuck would be willing to fly these things other then an astronaut? When an astronaut goes up in the space shuttle, they realize that they basically have a significant chance of dying. When your average business man takes a flight, he doesn't expect to be risking his life on an airplane that suffers massive extremes of hot, cold, acceleration, and air pressure. You don't go out of control at mach 25... you just disintegrate.
I am deeply skeptical that this company is going to make a scramjet, make it economical, and then make it safe enough for commercial use. I am not holding my breath on this one. I give Duke Nukem Forever a better chance of seeing the light of day in this decade then I give to this thing.
At the compression ratio achieved by a scramjet, I don't believe the thin atmosphere is a problem. Effectively, the shock wave compresses the air for you.
However, the X-43 was a very, very far cry from a commercially viable transport. It was 12 feet long and had something like a 100 pound usable payload, dedicated entirely to instrumentation. It was a single use, throw away, test plane. The engine only ran for just over 10 seconds (the goal was not to accelerate the plane to Mach 10, but to prove it is possible to operate the engine at Mach 10...imagine a candle in a hurricane). It required a $30 million Pegasus rocket to accelerate it to stated speed. When NASA first started toying with scramjets, they created the X-30 concept, which would've been basically what the article is describing but more realistic. Then they got to look at actually making a scramjet work and haven't really talked about the X-30 since. The X-43 is far less ambitious, but is still a tough project.
Aside from the very substantial technical hurdles, what do you think the commercial market is for a 2 hour flight to anywhere in a cramped capsule moving so fast that if there were an accident, there might not even be teeth left to identify you with? Even the Concorde couldn't pay for itself, and it cut the trip time for a very busy route in half. For comparison, Virgin Galactic is planning on offering suborbital joyrides that peak out at 3000 mph and don't actually get you anywhere for $200,000 each. Supposing that $200,000 per ticket were achievable, I doubt anyone can justify saving 10 hours at that price, even really important business executives. Even if they're time were that valuable, it's not like they couldn't get work done in the air on a suitably equipped business jet.
For the full defencetalk.com article that this GoogleAds blog entry seems to be summarizing, go here . Lots more information. Found the link on Fark don'tcha know.
Been there, done that, got sick afterwards =)
.. oh well, you get the idea =) on our group and apparently she sort of got her ribs/lungs squashed between the weight of her breasts and the wall she was standing against, which made breathing difficult! Logical if you think about it, but I would never have thought about it upfront.
The problem wasn't that the forces due to the acceleration were too hard to handle, but the spinning DOWN made me nauseous because of what was happening in my inner ear(s). I also clearly remember that the 'world' look 'tilted' once the thing had spun up... It was kind of fun as an experience, especially when trying to fight the centri-something force. But I must admit I stay clear from them now... oh well, maybe I'll give it a try sometime later, when the kids grow up and I have to act the cool dad =)
>> The biggest problem would probably be obese people.
Actually, we had a 'well-breasted-lady' (otherwise slim, think Heidi Klum but 20cm smaller, and with black hair, and not as famous, and
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
I'm not saying it's NOT a pipe dream, but it kind of reminds me of the early days of aviation when people were actually trying to find a business model. Lots of new technologies were tried out to lure rich travellers in search of novelty. Eventually, the more practical ideas trickled down to the 'flying buses' most travellers endure.
Can someone lure enough big-budget thrill seekers to get such an unlikely endeavor off the ground (for lack of a better term)? I'd like to believe people haven't stopped thinking big. Eventually, one of these bold (crazy?) ideas could actually work.
There are two throttle backs during orbiter ascent, neither of which have to do with G forces. The first occurs at approximately 1:31 when the shuttle hits Max-Q, maximum aerodynamic pressure. Once through Max-Q the shuttle is throttled back up until after the 8 minute mark, when the final throttle back commences. This is to turn the engines off before all fuel in the external tank is exhausted, because an emergency shutdown, the one caused by the sensors in the ET is rather painful on the turbopumps, and while better than the explosively catastrophic failure that would occur should the turbopumps run dry, is still not a very happy option. The shuttle doesn't achieve excessive G's by design.
This news, while being interesting from a scientific and technical standpoint (despite probably being way overblown and premature), will hardly impact the life of your average traveler. I can't speak for everyone here but the Concorde would never have been an option for me if I was ever flying to Europe due to the exorbitant ticket prices. I doubt this plane would be any different.
I am the inventor of the hilarious refrigerator alarm.