NASA Testing Supersonic X-51A Jet Tomorrow

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NASA Testing Supersonic X-51A Jet Tomorrow

Posted by Unknown on Monday August 13, 2012 @12:30PM from the but-does-it-go-to-plaid? dept.

First time accepted submitter littlesparkvt writes "The NASA and the Pentagon's experimental aircraft could go from NY to London in about an hour. With a cost of 140 million dollars USD. During the test the X51-A will reach speeds of 1700 meters a second and climb to an altitude of 70,000 feet."

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Cost by Hydrated+Wombat · 2012-08-13 12:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

Still costs less than a F22 Raptor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
1. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:34 · Score: 0
  
  but they aren't crashing f22's into the water...
2. Re:Cost by gagol · 2012-08-13 12:35 · Score: 2
  
  Add the radars, armoring, weapons and maintenance cost of a fleet and we have comparable figures.
  
  --
  Tomorrow is another day...
3. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Still costs less than a F22 Raptor
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
  
  That's probably because the F-22 is an operational aircraft capable of take-off/landing under its own power and houses a human pilot (among many other things).
4. Re:Cost by bolthole · 2012-08-13 12:50 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  UNLIKE the f22- raptor, though, this is basically an "unmanned vehicle". The title implies "jet aircraft" )ie: passenger vehicle) to most people, but in reality, this is not much more than "an oversized, air-launched missile".
  Which makes it sadly way less interesting
5. Re:Cost by R3d+M3rcury · 2012-08-13 12:51 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  This isn't a jet-plane. It's a fucking missile.
  Okay. So it could blow up London in about an hour.
6. Re:Cost by amiga3D · 2012-08-13 12:54 · Score: 2
  
  Foam at the mouth like this much? Maybe some Xanex or something would help. I wouldn't call the F-22 a piece of shit but it looks like the cost of maintenance will be astronomical. I'd just call it overpriced and underwhelming.
7. Re:Cost by amiga3D · 2012-08-13 13:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It's really just a test bed for scramjet research. It's a long way to an actual manned version.
8. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 13:01 · Score: 0
  
  This now makes sense on Slashdot, as it has been bought out by Rob Malda and his neoconservative buddies at The Washington Post. A pro-Israel, anti-Islam agenda is being so very obviously pushed here that its disgusting. Former WaPo boss Katharine Graham
  huh, the washington post is not even washington's conservative paper.
  please do tell us what you think of that so we can godwin's law this thread.
9. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 13:07 · Score: 0
  
  u mad?
10. Re:Cost by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-13 13:15 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Foam at the mouth like this much? Maybe some Xanex or something would help. I wouldn't call the F-22 a piece of shit but it looks like the cost of maintenance will be astronomical. I'd just call it overpriced and underwhelming.
  Cost of maintenance astronomical == piece of shit.
11. Re:Cost by budgenator · 2012-08-13 13:15 · Score: 1
  
  Yes but does an F22 go 6 million miles an hour like the X 51-A? That's what the article said, 1,700 miles /second * 60 seconds / minute * 60 = 6,120,000 miles / hour! Well perhaps the author, William, was metric impaired and mistook 1,700 meters / sec for miles / second; which works out to 1700 m/S / 1.609.34 m/mi = 1.05 mi/ S * 3600S/hr = 3,802.80 I did notice when you type mach 5 into a google search it replys "mach 5 = 1 701.45 m / s"
  
  --
  Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
12. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 13:31 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  But it will still take NBC 6 hours to report it.
13. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 13:31 · Score: 0, Insightful
  
  No, you're right, they're not. They're grounded because they're still unusable.
14. Re:Cost by BadgerRush · 2012-08-13 13:36 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  No, they are crashing the f22's into the desert
15. Re:Cost by gagol · 2012-08-13 13:56 · Score: 0
  
  Overengineering is a very bad thing. Hard to believe the KISS principle wax born in the USA when you look at things like the Shuttle (High costs, high coolness factor, the people's taxes get siphoned by contractors...)
  
  --
  Tomorrow is another day...
16. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 14:12 · Score: 0
  
  Still costs less than a F22 Raptor
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
  That's probably because the F-22 is an operational aircraft capable of take-off/landing under its own power and houses a human pilot (among many other things).
  They are located on airbases so that someone can chase the squatters off.
17. Re:Cost by filthpickle · 2012-08-13 14:26 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  no they aren't.
18. Re:Cost by filthpickle · 2012-08-13 14:30 · Score: 2
  
  Here comes the Eurofighter love. Except even the eurofighter pilots said they can't handle the raptor at long distance. (the only way it would ever be used)
19. Re:Cost by jamstar7 · 2012-08-13 14:32 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Sounds to me like they could use a few dozen Russian engineers.
  
  The way the Russkis used to do things was, design and build a prototype with all the bells and whistles and kitchen sink. Get it working. Then re-engineer it back to something a goat herder in Kazikstan could use with 5 minutes' training. Case in point? The MiG-23. They could crank them out for a cost of about 3.3 mil per, when the nearest Western equivilent was the Kfir C2 coming in at 4.5 mil and the F16 at 14. They used aircraft grade aluminum and stainless steel where Western aircraft were using titanium. They couldn't engage as many targets, but you could have 90%+ of them available to fly at a moment's notice where maintanance cycles grounded up to 2/3rds of the F16s at a time.
  
  --
  Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
20. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 14:54 · Score: 0
  
  Nobody put wings on the shuttle because they wanted to keep it simple. They knew what they were asking for when they did that.
21. Re:Cost by MacBurn11 · 2012-08-13 14:59 · Score: 2
  
  Hard to believe the KISS principle wax born in the USA
  yeah, you'd think they would stick to it...
22. Re:Cost by Hadlock · 2012-08-13 15:52 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, but this device has no human pilot to asphyxiate when the life support system goes haywire. So there's all those wrongful death lawsuits you get to avoid.
  
  --
  moox. for a new generation.
23. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 16:10 · Score: 0
  
  All you need to do is wait for the f22 pilot to do a victory roll, pass out and crash, since there are so few of them, they wont last long....
24. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 16:50 · Score: 0
  
  F22 Raptor
  There is a hyphen in that MDS: F-22. It's even in the URL you pasted.
  You wouldn't omit a hyphen if expected by a compiler, so why omit it when writing for humans?
25. Re:Cost by subreality · 2012-08-13 16:53 · Score: 1
  
  Cost of maintenance astronomical == piece of shit.
  Perhaps it's a POS, but it's a POS that can maintain air superiority even when significantly outnumbered (by an order of magnitude) by ANY other aircraft, full stop.
  It's not like there's a huge fleet of these things. There are 187. All the everyday stuff (escorting stray aircraft from restricted airspace, air support, shooting down bombers, air patrols) are handled by the thousands of F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 aircraft which will be in service for quite a while longer.
  So:
  Cost per hour of operation: Astronomical.
  Total program cost: Not really that high, as a percentage of military spending - about one year's worth of the total military budget for a service life of decades. It's the same magnitude as each of the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 programs.
  Capability of completely dominating any air superiority battle for the forseeable future: Priceless.
26. Re:Cost by Torvo · 2012-08-13 17:08 · Score: 1
  
  Less than 3x the cost of a Gulfstream G-650, for comparison. http://www.gizmag.com/business-travel-at-800-mph--the-gulfstream-g650/9000/
27. Re:Cost by cheesybagel · 2012-08-13 17:37 · Score: 2
  
  After the Meteor missile and the AESA radar get into service this could change. The Raptor can launch a long range missile but there are active defenses against radar guided missiles besides passive stealth features. The history of fighters is littered with people who thought short range dogfighting was not going to happen because they had superior missiles and got proven wrong over and over again. The Eurofighter wins in dogfighting because it has helmet sights and IRST (Infrared Search and Track) sensors.
28. Re:Cost by cheesybagel · 2012-08-13 17:39 · Score: 1
  
  Well sometimes F-22s do escort aircraft away from restricted airspace.
29. Re:Cost by ozmanjusri · 2012-08-13 18:04 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Or you could compare it to something similar:
  The original University of Queensland's HyShot hypersonic tests were done for less than $2 million. Even better well-funded followup flights were around $4.5 million.
  http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1127540.htm
  
  --
  "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
30. Re:Cost by frosty_tsm · 2012-08-13 18:57 · Score: 2
  
  no they aren't.
  We've been at war for 10 years and they haven't seen combat. If they were usable they would have been involved (instead, they were restricted because of the oxygen system issue). Hell, we sent B-2s over Afghanistan. You think they were flown because of their sophisticated anti-aircraft system?
31. Re:Cost by frosty_tsm · 2012-08-13 19:03 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps it's a POS, but it's a POS that can maintain air superiority even when significantly outnumbered (by an order of magnitude) by ANY other aircraft, full stop.
  Isn't there a pretty strict limit on the number of missiles it can carry? If an F-22 goes up with 8 missiles, it can only take out 8 targets (assuming all hit). After that, it can only bug out.
32. Re:Cost by SplashMyBandit · 2012-08-13 19:11 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Correct. Turns out that the 'Raptor' problem is, in fact, related to incorrect inflation of the "Combat Edge" chest corset of G-suits. This incorrect inflation also occurred on F-15s and F-16s but no one noticed. Only on the F-22 was it noticed/significant.
  Just in case you think I'm full of shit, here's a citation quoting USAF sources:
  http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/08/01/air-force-confident-f22-oxygen-riddle-solved.html
  With that (apparently 20-year old) problem solved, Raptor is back in the air and back to Top Dog.
33. Re:Cost by UncleTogie · 2012-08-13 19:47 · Score: 1
  
  Isn't there a pretty strict limit on the number of missiles it can carry? If an F-22 goes up with 8 missiles, it can only take out 8 targets (assuming all hit). After that, it can only bug out.
  Depends on how good they are with that 20mm cannon mounted in the right wing....
  
  --
  Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
34. Re:Cost by subreality · 2012-08-13 20:05 · Score: 1
  
  It holds 8, but it also has 480 rounds in the cannon. Don't knock it - people thought missiles made guns obsolete (witness the F-4, originally designed with no guns), but cannon kills are still a notable minority.
  The thing is you never really need to sustain a fight that long. It just takes a half dozen F-22s to go in and shoot the place up; then the 4th gen fighters move in, clean up anything that's left, and hold the territory while the F-22s fly off, reload, and go to capture more airspace. Of course, this is really done in a rotation, not all-in/all-out.
35. Re:Cost by Coward+Anonymous · 2012-08-13 20:06 · Score: 1
  
  Yet, in actual combat Western planes have always prevailed.
36. Re:Cost by infolation · 2012-08-13 20:32 · Score: 1
  
  Okay. So it could blow up London in about an hour.
  Not if our spiffy rapier missiles have anything to do with it!
37. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 20:34 · Score: 0
  
  With that (apparently 20-year old) problem solved, Raptor is back in the air and back to Top Dog.
  "The F-22 has the highest accident rate of any USAF fighter aircraft in service.... cite
  It also needs 30 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight (with a month-long rebuild every 300 flight hours).
38. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 21:07 · Score: 0
  
  That's ok, we'll be using the less... er... more expensive f35's soon enough. Just not the variants that didn't work. And since they're only a few years past due and a few billion over budget, probably not for a good, long while yet.
  But at least we can get people around in our decades-old Osprey's that are finally in service. Just make sure you've signed your last will and testament before you fly.
39. Re:Cost by gdy · 2012-08-13 21:15 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, like in the Vietnam War or in the Yom Kippur War )
40. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 21:29 · Score: 0
  
  lol yah, all the glorious formes
41. Re:Cost by Weatherlawyer · 2012-08-13 23:17 · Score: 0
  
  Back in the air but not on active service?
  For a nation at war it is fortunate it has its choice of enemies.
  I rather think Iran is going to with their next one. Especially if all it has to do is sell oil and not import any more Windows operating systems.
  In fact an oil rich embargoed country has never been put to the test. A coal rich embargoed country managed to conquer most of Europe twice in half a century.
42. Re:Cost by Dins · 2012-08-13 23:22 · Score: 2
  
  The F-22 is an air superiority fighter. It is designed to quickly establish air superiority against the best fighters currently available. In all of our current conflicts, we have controlled the skies completely from the first several days of each campaign. So there really hasn't been a need for F-22s in those conflicts. The F-22 would be useful in a war against China, Russia, or any other country with a more modern air force capable of challenging the US for air superiority.
43. Re:Cost by chfriley · 2012-08-13 23:37 · Score: 1
  
  Not to mention the difference between a military/government contract and a private one. One has a lot more cost and design controls, the other has a lot more political input for spreading the work around.
44. Re:Cost by Weatherlawyer · 2012-08-13 23:43 · Score: 0
  
  Only if count on the fact that US pilots were not up against Russian ones.
  The USSR would hardly send the best batches of the very latest stuff to even very friendly allies since those very friendly allies tended to hate the USSR with passion.
  Russian rocket engines were far superior to US ones for the reason given above. They just got it done and made improvements on the shop floor.
  Rolls Royce sold them their first jet engines, not realising their capabilities to make do and mend would allow them to produce superior versions of the same and have them in fighters within a few years and have the older ones sent to whatever satellite war zone was part of the great game at the time.
  Even in WW2 they were utilising failed armaments intended for things such as gun shells as rocket warheads. The Wehrmacht was just scrapping their duds and recycling them and at a time it could least afford to be particular.
  In other words the German war effort was over-engineered and they lost. The Russians were hands on, low tech, high volume, modification oriented -as was Britain to a lesser extent; and they won.
  It seems that the USA has become the neonazi military regime. It barely worked in Korea, failed miserably in Vietnam and hasn't even got started yet in Iraq or Afghanistan.
45. Re:Cost by Sulphur · 2012-08-13 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  no they aren't.
  We've been at war for 10 years and they haven't seen combat. If they were usable they would have been involved (instead, they were restricted because of the oxygen system issue). Hell, we sent B-2s over Afghanistan. You think they were flown because of their sophisticated anti-aircraft system?
  If there were working Stinger missiles left, then maybe they were.
46. Re:Cost by TheDarkMaster · 2012-08-14 00:03 · Score: 1
  
  Wrong. You need overengineering when you are creating something new and you are not sure if it will work or if your calculations are correct. If yours calculations are incorrect, it is always better to overestimate (heavy, ugly, but works) than to underestimate and have a fireball on the ground.
  
  --
  Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
47. Re:Cost by hackertourist · 2012-08-14 00:06 · Score: 2
  
  It seems that the USA has become the neonazi military regime. It barely worked in Korea, failed miserably in Vietnam and hasn't even got started yet in Iraq or Afghanistan.
  Actually it worked brilliantly in Iraq. The Iraqi army, war-hardened and no slouch, was blitzed in a matter of days. Any regular army would fare badly against the US.
  The problem the US keeps having is that its opponents aren't regular armies but guerilla fighters. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan are/were all insurgencies, and you can't win those if you're not prepared to kill everyone who opposes you, and even then your tactics will ensure that plenty of formerly neutral civilians will resent this enough that they'll take up arms against you, so you get caught up in a vicious circle which doesn't end until everybody's dead or you give up.
  The Russians with their cheap, plentiful warplanes wouldn't have fared any better in these circumstances (case in point: Afghanistan), because your weapons basically don't matter in an insurgency.
48. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 00:15 · Score: 0
  
  this is an argument.
49. Re:Cost by gilboad · 2012-08-14 00:34 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, the IDF F4s, F15s, F16s and Kfir C-2s faced a lot of MIG-23's in the first Lebanon war.
  As far as I recall the war ended at 86:0.
  - Gilboa
50. Re:Cost by jacknifetoaswan · 2012-08-14 00:44 · Score: 1
  
  As soon as I read the WaPo thing, I was thinking 'huh?????'. NY Post, Washington Times = Conservative. NY Times, Washington Post = Liberal.
51. Re:Cost by mdielmann · 2012-08-14 01:20 · Score: 1
  
  The problem the US keeps having is that its opponents aren't regular armies but guerilla fighters.
  No, the problem the US keeps having is that it keeps trying to win the war rather than occupying the nation or winning the hearts of the nation. Certainly there are other problems, but the trick to defeating guerrillas is to make them the enemy in the average countryman's eyes, and make that countryman feel secure in not supporting the guerrillas. This could also be described as achieving peace.
  Winning wars is simple. Achieving peace is much more complicated. Also, know your goals. If the US's goal was to defeat the Iraqi army, they accomplished that a long time ago. If the goal was to create a new democratic ally in the Middle East, they apparently have yet to come close.
  
  --
  Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
52. Re:Cost by jonadab · 2012-08-14 01:42 · Score: 1
  
  > The MiG-23. They could crank them out for a cost
  > of about 3.3 mil per, when the nearest Western
  > equivalent was the Kfir C2 coming in at 4.5 mil
  OTOH, the US could actually afford the $4.5 million per-unit pricetag on the fighter jets, plus everything else (not least whatever sum we were throwing at SDI), without bankrupting the nation. Military spending was never more than about 20% of the federal budget, and our taxes were (compared to theirs) relatively bearable. As Russia continually tried to match our military spending, it dominated their government budget, despite much higher tax rates, and the Soviet economy eventually collapsed under the strain.
  On the whole, I'd say we managed our finances better.
  
  --
  Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
53. Re:Cost by jonadab · 2012-08-14 01:53 · Score: 1
  
  > The Iraqi army, war-hardened and no slouch
  
  Don't put too much credence in claims that the press in that part of the world propagates about the military over there. Every single time they get in a conflict with anybody from outside the region (France, England, America, anybody with an actual military), they get owned, hard.
  
  Then there's what happens when they cross Israel. Nasser's Egyptian forces going into the 1967 conflict were, if you listened to the hype on the local radio over there, overwhelmingly superior to Israel's in every way. After six days, the UN had to *beg* Israel to stop the war. If it had gone on for a couple more weeks, Egypt would not exist as an independent country today.
  
  --
  Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
54. Re:Cost by dywolf · 2012-08-14 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  The actual ground war was over before the F22 even entered active service.
  The B2 was sent more as real world training/vetting for the crews and squadron, not out of necessity.
  Your comments are irrelevent.
  
  --
  The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
55. Re:Cost by dywolf · 2012-08-14 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  Why is this modded interesting? This is a joke (mod:funny) at best, comparing a pilotless test plane designed to do just one thing, with the most advanced fighter in the world thats been in development for nigh 30 years.
  
  --
  The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
56. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 03:06 · Score: 0
  
  It saddens me that this type of beautiful double-edged humor is on the wane.
57. Re:Cost by Thorodin · 2012-08-14 03:23 · Score: 1
  
  I guess I must be out of it. This is the first time I ever heard neocon applied to people at the Washington Post.
58. Re:Cost by Thorodin · 2012-08-14 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  I think the leaders of the old Soviet Union believed in quantity over, not necessarily quality, but innovation and superior weapons\avionics.
59. Re:Cost by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 03:32 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, you're right. It's just that they can't find any pilots that are willing to fly the thing.
  
  It's an awesome piece of machinery, it seriously is, but they need to figure out what's wrong with it rather than just some poorly designed valves in the pressure garment - 4 years to diagnose that? come on...
  
  http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/04/1251246/air-force-claims-to-have-solved-fatal-f-22-oxygen-riddle
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
60. Re:Cost by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 03:37 · Score: 1
  
  I think the most elegant example is using a pencil vs developing a "space pen" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
61. Re:Cost by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  I am Russian and I agree, good few quotes from Rambo 3 on this... Can't find the one from the end of the film but...
  
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095956/quotes?qt=qt0342670
  
  Modern weapons are amazing, but the cost is ridiculous.Afghanistans GDP is 18 billion USD - how much has the war cost? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html
  
  As long as there is enough support for the Guerillas or enough opposition against the "oppressors" but that is definitely not the way to go in this country.
  
  Doesn't really help that the US helped create and train al-Qaeda to fight the Russians with the exact tactics that would work against a similarly (higher tech but oh so much more expensive) equipped army.
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
62. Re:Cost by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 03:48 · Score: 1
  
  That and the space race... Situation is somewhat reversed today however...
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
63. Re:Cost by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 03:59 · Score: 1
  
  Ok, I'll probably be modded down to hell for this but... Slaughtering their own people aside, how long was it that the USA and the rest of the Western World wasn't the same? I am enjoying the progressive trend we are on (though I feel feminism has gone a little too far in a few cases - I don't think I should be shouted at for holding a door open for a woman, but that is an extreme case and you will always have those).
  
  In the UK its been barely a quarter century since it was made illegal for a man to "rape" his own wife - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape
  
  Forcing change at a pace a society is ready for only causes more issues, and instilling your own value (however righteous they are) overnight will only lead to disorder.
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
64. Re:Cost by mcgrew · 2012-08-14 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  It barely worked in Korea, failed miserably in Vietnam and hasn't even got started yet in Iraq or Afghanistan.
  Since the Korean war was never officially ended (there's only a cease fire), that's hardly a win. But you are reading your history wrong about Vietnam. In that conflict, we won the battles but lost the war. It was a political defeat, not a military one. As to Iraq and Afghanistan, you're kidding, right? How long did the first Iraqui war last? The second Iraqui war (as well as the Afghan war) would have been over much faster had the US's Commander In Chief not been utterly incompetent at everything he ever did.
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
65. Re:Cost by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  Because humans have much greater error tolerance than a compiler and can understand what F22 refers to without the hyphen?
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
66. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 04:24 · Score: 0
  
  Is F22 the FORTRAN compiler that came out in 1922?
67. Re:Cost by poity · 2012-08-14 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  Because we're online, and if a joke has even the slightest political angle, and which is in line with your own politics, it gets the "Insightful" mod. If the politics are not in line with your own, then it's "Troll" or "Flamebait"
  These folks will probably also lament the deterioration of intelligent discourse when they're not busy doing the above.
  
  --
  your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
68. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 05:09 · Score: 0
  
  Not to mention that this thing will only fly once...
69. Re:Cost by BenLeeImp · 2012-08-14 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  You may want to read that link. "A common urban legend states that..."
70. Re:Cost by tibman · 2012-08-14 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  I saw an Osprey landing a few weeks ago. Very cool to see. I can understand why it was complicated but jeez, they still have a deathtrap rep.
  
  --
  http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
71. Re:Cost by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 08:08 · Score: 1
  
  Obviously
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
72. Re:Cost by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 08:09 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, yes... Continue believing the sh*t that US spews
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
73. Re:Cost by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 09:02 · Score: 0
  
  But it will still take NBC 6 hours to report it.
  Must be nice to live on the East Coast.
74. Re:Cost by adamchou · 2012-08-14 09:32 · Score: 1
  
  Shoot down them Taliban fighter jets!
75. Re:Cost by amiga3D · 2012-08-14 15:40 · Score: 1
  
  F-22's have not proven themselves in combat yet.
76. Re:Cost by subreality · 2012-08-14 15:54 · Score: 1
  
  Certainly, though they're doing well in war games, and the basic tradeoffs are pretty well understood.
77. Re:Cost by HArchH · 2012-08-15 13:23 · Score: 1
  
  B52's fly and drop their bombs from well beyond the range of a Stinger missile. I doubt any of the B52's are landing at Bagram to make the good targets for the local sheep headers.
78. Re:Cost by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-15 16:11 · Score: 1
  
  > The MiG-23. They could crank them out for a cost > of about 3.3 mil per, when the nearest Western > equivalent was the Kfir C2 coming in at 4.5 mil
  OTOH, the US could actually afford the $4.5 million per-unit pricetag on the fighter jets, plus everything else (not least whatever sum we were throwing at SDI), without bankrupting the nation. Military spending was never more than about 20% of the federal budget, and our taxes were (compared to theirs) relatively bearable. As Russia continually tried to match our military spending, it dominated their government budget, despite much higher tax rates, and the Soviet economy eventually collapsed under the strain.
  On the whole, I'd say we managed our finances better.
  My problem with this whole line of argument is that it presumes that, absent a cold war with the USA, the USSR was a stable entity that would not have collapsed under the pressure of its own internal conflicts. We DON'T KNOW THAT. We just know that the military spending was one of many pressures on the Soviet economy.
79. Re:Cost by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-15 16:13 · Score: 1
  
  Wrong. You need overengineering when you are creating something new and you are not sure if it will work or if your calculations are correct. If yours calculations are incorrect, it is always better to overestimate (heavy, ugly, but works) than to underestimate and have a fireball on the ground.
  Really? Is that how the USA does it? Then how come all our fighter planes are so fucking reliable?
80. Re:Cost by StuffMaster · 2012-08-17 17:24 · Score: 1
  
  That's one thing people overlook...the USSR had a lot less money to spend and much more territory to cover, so they prioritized quantity over quality more than the US did.
81. Re:Cost by Weatherlawyer · 2012-08-18 00:43 · Score: 0
  
  >>It seems that the USA has become the neonazi military regime. It barely worked in Korea,
  >the US's Commander In Chief not been utterly incompetent at everything he ever did.
  I can't work out where you are agreeing with me. At first glance you appear to be disagreeing but not with anything I said.
  It must be my bad Karma -whatever that is.
82. Re:Cost by Weatherlawyer · 2012-08-18 00:58 · Score: 0
  
  In Iraq, the US and British and other allied forces removed the ruling party and destroyed the US armaments the Iraqi forces had. The Iraqi army virtually melted into the background. To this day the "insurgents" don't know who they are dealing with.
  I presume you don't know the meaning of the term insurgent:
  1: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially : a rebel not recognized as a belligerent
  2: one who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of one's own political party
  In either description the term hardly applies in Iraq or Afghanistan. So maybe I shouldn't use it to describe the aliens who have taken such misery with them to those places. But what the hell; it's not as though I am going to lose any karma over it.
83. Re:Cost by jonadab · 2012-08-18 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  > My problem with this whole line of argument is that it
  > presumes that, absent a cold war with the USA, the
  > USSR was a stable entity that would not have collapsed
  > under the pressure of its own internal conflicts.
  > We DON'T KNOW THAT
  
  I would say we know the contrary. Even setting aside the fact that _all_ governments collapse eventually, anyone who knows the first thing about economics can tell you that communism was never going to be viable in the long term -- certainly not for a major world power.
  
  Even the Chinese government figured that out. They won't admit it in so many words, but they have effectively abandoned Soviet-style communism in favor of "Communism with Chinese Characteristics", i.e., a constitutional hierarchical oligarchy that with each passing decade embraces capitalist free-market economic systems more and more. They haven't embraced Western-style representative democracy, but somebody in their government has apparently read Adam Smith, and the entire nation has profited from it. The only major economic system worse than communism is economic populism. Virtually anything else is better. Keynesian socialism is MUCH better than outright central-planning communism, and free-market capitalism makes Keynesian socialism look about as attractive as used toilet paper.
  
  The question of how long the demise of the USSR would have taken (without the cold war), however, is more to the point. It is almost certainly true that the large amount of spending the USSR poured into keeping up with the American Joneses hastened the collapse of Soviet communism. Nobody can really ever know exactly how *much* it hastened it, though. Personally, I do not think it is likely to be a coincidence that the wall came down (followed shortly by the curtain) less than ten years after Reagan initiated his approach of spending them under the table on excessive military preparedness. Basically, it was keeping up with the Joneses, weaponized. It was a drain on the US economy, but it was one we were able to bear, because our economy was (and largely still is, despite our setbacks of late) fairly strong, relative to the world as a whole.
  
  --
  Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
84. Re:Cost by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-18 10:14 · Score: 1
  
  The name for the current Chinese political system is Fascism.
85. Re:Cost by jonadab · 2012-08-19 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  > The name for the current Chinese political system is Fascism.
  
  Officially, it's called "Communism". Anybody who says otherwise isn't allowed to have diplomatic relations with them. You might as well say that Taiwan is a separate country from China, or that China invaded Tibet without provocation, or that Mao was an evil dictatorial opportunist who didn't understand boo about economics and China is better off with him dead. What nonsense. Haha. Meaningless lies perpetuated by evil Western capitalist/imperialist propaganda.
  
  But yeah, in practice, although the current system in China is called "Communism", it is not Soviet-style communism in the sense of being the same kind of central-planning system that failed in the USSR. That kind of system would fail in China too, and the Chinese government knows it. They don't (can't, even) talk about it in public, but they know.
  
  --
  Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
huray for proofreading by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

Pretty sure it won't go 1700 miles per second
1. Re:huray for proofreading by gagol · 2012-08-13 12:34 · Score: 2
  
  it should read 1 mile per second actually
  
  --
  Tomorrow is another day...
2. Re:huray for proofreading by gagol · 2012-08-13 12:39 · Score: 1
  
  The original article is very very wrong... is journalism dead? I think so, will look into obituaries to check it up.
  
  --
  Tomorrow is another day...
3. Re:huray for proofreading by Narrowband · 2012-08-13 12:40 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, if it were "per second," they'd be better off calling it ~1%C.
4. Re:huray for proofreading by fustakrakich · 2012-08-13 12:41 · Score: 2
  
  The craft will be tested over the Pacific Ocean after being flown there on the wing of a B52 bombers wing.
  Mod article redundant..
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
5. Re:huray for proofreading by Spy+Handler · 2012-08-13 12:53 · Score: 1
  
  like Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime?
6. Re:huray for proofreading by hargrand · 2012-08-13 13:21 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Dad: Max, why does the word "wing" appear twice in this sentence?
  Max (6yrs old): Because the B-52 has two wings.
7. Re:huray for proofreading by budgenator · 2012-08-13 13:30 · Score: 2
  
  actually 1,700 meters per second or 3,800 Mi/Hr, one mi/S is 3600 Mi/Hr or 1 088.9 m/S
  
  --
  Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
8. Re:huray for proofreading by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-08-13 16:21 · Score: 0
  
  Why are you on a blog asking about the state of journalism?
  
  --
  
  "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
9. Re:huray for proofreading by Mindcontrolled · 2012-08-13 21:42 · Score: 2
  
  Yo dawg, i heard you like to wing it, so I put wings on your wings, so you can wing it while you wing it?
  
  --
  Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
10. Re:huray for proofreading by TheDarkMaster · 2012-08-14 00:06 · Score: 1
  
  He needs to fly at 1700 miles per second to escape from Chuck Norris.
  
  --
  Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
11. Re:huray for proofreading by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  3800/3600 = 1700/1088.9
  
  Sorry but that confuses me...
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
12. Re:huray for proofreading by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 04:11 · Score: 1
  
  Nowhere near fast enough... Chuck Norris is the only known entity to be able to travel faster than c
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
1700 miles a second????? by stox · 2012-08-13 12:33 · Score: 1, Informative

That would be 6.12 MILLION miles per hour. Somehow, I doubt that.

--
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
1. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:37 · Score: 0
  
  almost 1% the speed of light. wonder if they're taking measurements for any relativistic effects
2. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Sparkio · 2012-08-13 12:42 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Mach 5 = 1,701.45 m / s... still pretty crazy fast - LA to NY in ~42 minutes - but no, not LA to NY in 2 seconds. Methinks someone plugged it into google and thought 'hey, m must mean miles, right?'
3. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:44 · Score: 0
  
  Try shooting that down! Sounds like a winner for the Pentagon.
4. Re:1700 miles a second????? by R3d+M3rcury · 2012-08-13 12:58 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Mach 5 = 1,701.45 m / s
  Yup. m = miles, s = seconds. That's 1700 miles per second.
  I mean, what else could m possibly stand for? There's only one unit of measurement that starts with the letter 'm'...
5. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 13:11 · Score: 0
  
  Sonic WHOOSH!!
6. Re:1700 miles a second????? by R3d+M3rcury · 2012-08-13 13:18 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  m is metre moron
  It's an American missile. Why would they be talking in weird foreign measurements? I mean, "metre"?! R before E? Who spells like that? Sounds like some kind of cheese-eatin' surrender-monkey socialist kind of measurement. Certainly not the kind of measurement that freedom lovin' people from the Good ol' USA would use.
  So there you have it. 1700 miles per second. That'll put the fear of God into those godless commies.
  (I was going to mark my original post as sarcasm but I thought, "Nah. People will get it.")
7. Re:1700 miles a second????? by stepho-wrs · 2012-08-13 13:34 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  1,701.45 big Macs per second.
  Wow!
8. Re:1700 miles a second????? by formfeed · 2012-08-13 14:58 · Score: 1
  
  It's an American missile. ...
  So there you have it. 1700 miles per second. That'll put the fear of God into those godless commies.
  But second is also used in the Socialist International (SI) System. To be truly American you would have to replace it with something more patriotic.
9. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 16:04 · Score: 0
  
  God Bless America!
10. Re:1700 miles a second????? by flyingfsck · 2012-08-13 16:08 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, more likely 1700000 furlong per fortnight.
  
  --
  Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
11. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Artifakt · 2012-08-13 16:09 · Score: 1
  
  Always indicate humor, sarcasm, or irony - this is the new Slashdot. While you are at it, if you are using Morrisetteian Irony instead of the real thing, you must add a link to a scholarly article about lamas, instead of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironic_(song)
  For a while, I was starting to think Slashdot was attracting the attention of a lot of Aspergers sufferers, but I finally realized that most of these people don't have the highly functioning part, or even the autism part. They just don't 'get it', and I suspect some of them go through life irritating every single person they meet.
  
  --
  Who is John Cabal?
12. Re:1700 miles a second????? by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-08-13 16:23 · Score: 0
  
  Nope, it's true, CNN reported it.
  
  --
  
  "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
13. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Rob_Bryerton · 2012-08-13 16:24 · Score: 1
  
  How many hogsheads does that work out to?
14. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Rob_Bryerton · 2012-08-13 16:34 · Score: 1
  
  I got a good laugh out of that...
  
  It turns out McDonald's runs at "only" 17 Big Macs per second. I'm sure they're thrilled to hear the fuel consumption rate of the X-51A... http://www.google.com/search?q=big+Macs+per+second
15. Re:1700 miles a second????? by shaitand · 2012-08-13 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  Second is borrowed by the socialists, we americans invented it! Furlongs, fortnights, and stones aren't used in the USA.
16. Re:1700 miles a second????? by k6mfw · 2012-08-13 18:36 · Score: 1
  
  what really doubts me is actual use of a speedy jet for passenger travel. by the time you get through TSA, someone who were to swim the Atlantic will get there before you do. but then X51A is a hellava missile, awesome weapon system to further bankrupt this country.
  
  --
  mfwright@batnet.com
17. Re:1700 miles a second????? by awrowe · 2012-08-13 23:02 · Score: 1
  
  So, 1700 miles per Freedom!
  
  --
  A.I. Research. The peculiar science in which we know the question and we know the answer, but can't show the working
18. Re:1700 miles a second????? by khallow · 2012-08-13 23:19 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect some of them go through life irritating every single person they meet.
  I prefer to call it a "target-rich environment".
19. Re:1700 miles a second????? by Malc · 2012-08-14 00:26 · Score: 1
  
  That would be everybody who speaks English except for Americans. Not just the French (I assume that's who you were referring too in your puerile comment)
  For most of the English speaking world, a "meter" is a measurement device, not a unit of measure.
1700 miles a *second* ??? by gaspar+ilom · 2012-08-13 12:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

> 1700 miles a second

This is obviously a mis-print, right?
1. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Hartree · 2012-08-13 12:37 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, the military would love it if we had something that could go 1/100th the speed of light in the atmosphere. *vroom*
2. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-08-13 12:38 · Score: 2
  
  And this...
  
  With a cost of 140 million dollars USD.
  ...is a sentence fragment.
  It's all just one big.
3. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:39 · Score: 0
  
  well 1700 *metres per second* is 5 times the speed of sound... so presumably the author of the article mixed up miles and metres...
4. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by gagol · 2012-08-13 12:43 · Score: 1
  
  Are the figures coming from the same team that blew a mars rover years ago?
  
  --
  Tomorrow is another day...
5. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by similar_name · 2012-08-13 12:43 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Warp .01 sound way cooler.
6. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by jbeaupre · 2012-08-13 12:48 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Nope. It's correct. They are launching over the Pacific ocean. They expect it to disappear off the left side of the map and reappear on the right side of the map about 14 seconds later. 24,000 miles divided by 14 seconds gives you 1700 miles/sec.
  Maybe they should use a globe.
  
  --
  The world is made by those who show up for the job.
7. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by ceoyoyo · 2012-08-13 12:59 · Score: 1
  
  Somebody saw m/s and figured miles starts with an m....
8. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:59 · Score: 0
  
  no....1700 miles/second is not correct. 1700 metres/second is the proper speed.
9. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Martin+Blank · 2012-08-13 13:22 · Score: 1
  
  The unit mix-up was for the Mars Climate Orbiter, not a lander. The Mars Polar Lander failed, but that was probably due to an early engine cutoff due to a false sensor reading.
  
  --
  You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
10. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by hargrand · 2012-08-13 13:23 · Score: 2
  
  The whole article is a misprint.
11. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by thunderclap · 2012-08-13 13:23 · Score: 0
  
  Whose to say we didnt built it? It obvious;y has no people in it but still its possible. Not probable, but possible.
12. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by thunderclap · 2012-08-13 13:27 · Score: 0
  
  1.7 km/s is far slower. sadly thats about 1.056 miles/second.
13. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by jbeaupre · 2012-08-13 13:33 · Score: 2
  
  Hear that whooshing sound? That's not the X-51. That's a joke going over your head.
  
  --
  The world is made by those who show up for the job.
14. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Rob_Bryerton · 2012-08-13 16:40 · Score: 1
  
  What degree (amount?) of time dilation would a traveler aboard such a craft experience I wonder...
15. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by shaitand · 2012-08-13 17:09 · Score: 1
  
  It also doesn't make sense. 140 million dollars USD brought to you by the department of redundancy department.
16. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Starteck81 · 2012-08-13 18:16 · Score: 1
  
  And this...
  
  With a cost of 140 million dollars USD.
  ...is a sentence fragment.
  It's all just one big.
  That's how I talk you insensitive.
  
  --
  "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
17. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 01:00 · Score: 0
  
  > 1700 miles a second
  This is obviously a mis-print, right?
  "1700 meters per second" not miles
18. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Hartree · 2012-08-14 02:15 · Score: 1
  
  About 4 seconds difference if you maintained that speed for 24 hours.
19. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Sulphur · 2012-08-14 02:52 · Score: 1
  
  Warp .01 sound way cooler.
  I believe that's impulse.
20. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 04:11 · Score: 0
  
  > 1700 miles a second
  This is obviously a mis-print, right?
  For Christ sake,
  It is 1700 meters per second (or 1.7 kilometers per second) which equates to 6120 kilometers per hour (3802.79 mph).
  You and your silly imperial unit system.
21. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-08-14 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  Ha! I breezed right past that. I was channeling Derpy.
22. Re:1700 miles a *second* ??? by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-08-14 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  Hey, don't make me!
Another article with more background... by daveschroeder · 2012-08-13 12:35 · Score: 4, Informative

...is here
1. Re:Another article with more background... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 15:05 · Score: 0
  
  Just not a very good article. For example,
  
  If it fails -- and the last two tests of this X-51A Waverider have fallen short -- then the Pentagon will have sent something on the order of $300 million to the bottom of the Pacific.
  Right, so all the data and all the people who work on this thing are riding in it?
  Rubbish sensationalist crap. By morons, for morons.
Nearly 1% c!! That's awesome!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:36 · Score: 0

I can't wait to see something go almost 1% of the speed of light!
Math by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:39 · Score: 0

London to NY = ~ 3400 miles ...
1700miles / second or almost .1C ... ...
In one hour.
1. Re:Math by fustakrakich · 2012-08-13 12:43 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  You have to account for jet lag.
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
2. Re:Math by similar_name · 2012-08-13 12:52 · Score: 2
  
  1700miles / second or almost .1C ... ...
  You might want to check your math.
3. Re:Math by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 04:16 · Score: 1
  
  ~0.01c - just an order of magnitude and a capitalisiation away from being right :)
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
NY to Israel/Iran in 1 hour and a modest price tag by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:43 · Score: 0

More importantly, it can get from NY to Israel or Iran in an hour.
140 million USD is not a crazy price tag for a supersonic plane.
In fact, it might be a bargain.
In comparison, the NASA Curiosity rover costs $2.5 Billion USD.
You could build 17 X51-A jets for that price.
Re:NY to Israel/Iran in 1 hour and a modest price by istartedi · 2012-08-13 12:52 · Score: 2

Yeah, it can get to Iran fast enough to beat them into submission so that we... have enough gas to get back.
I'm pretty sure there are more cost effective ways to achieve military... umm... Oh crap. Yeah. You're right. It's a weapon.

--
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
1700 miles/second? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:56 · Score: 0

me thinks that's a little ways down the road yet...
Um, wait, what? by tool462 · 2012-08-13 12:56 · Score: 1

Surely that's more likely 1700 m/s (meters per second), not miles per second. Though if the latter, sign me up for a test ride!
1. Re:Um, wait, what? by VortexCortex · 2012-08-13 15:28 · Score: 1
  
  Surely that's more likely 1700 m/s (meters per second), not miles per second. Though if the latter, sign me up for a test ride!
  Well, what if it were 10,221,904.1 furlongs per fortnight? Would you sign up then?
1.21 Jigawatts? by sanman2 · 2012-08-13 12:56 · Score: 1

The Libyans will never catch you
progrenn by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 12:57 · Score: 1

the x-7 from 1960:
Performance
Maximum speed: Mach 4.31 (2,881 mph, 4,640 km/h)
Service ceiling: 106,000 ft (32,317 m)
glad to see what darpa came out with after absorbing the x-43.
In all seriousness, i do hope this does well. We could use this type of launch vehicle.
1700? by talon540 · 2012-08-13 13:00 · Score: 1

Is this thing powered by neutrinos?
Re:huray(sic) for proofreading by ukemike · 2012-08-13 13:11 · Score: 2

With a cost of 140 million dollars USD.

That's a nice complete sentence!

--
-- QED
This is why NASA can't have nice things... by bjwest · 2012-08-13 13:36 · Score: 2

The Pentagon is using them to develop military projects like this. This is what the frigging Military Industrial Complex and DARPA are for. Leave NASA and they're limited and continuously dwindling funds for space research, or we're going to be left in the dust by China, India and the other space faring nations.
Note: If this and projects like it are funded separately and outside of NASAs budget, then, never mind. Carry on...

--

--- Keep the choice with the user..
1. Re:This is why NASA can't have nice things... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2012-08-13 14:00 · Score: 2
  
  Why do you think they dumped billions into NASA rocketry? Or the USSR did for that matter?
  Military -- The civilian stuff is just memetic misdirection to get you go go along with it.
  See also cars and highways.
  
  --
  (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
2. Re:This is why NASA can't have nice things... by Bigby · 2012-08-14 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  Is NASA not the military?
3. Re:This is why NASA can't have nice things... by Timmyisinthewell · 2012-08-14 02:09 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sick of this poor grammar on the erudite Slashdot!
  
  "Leave NASA and they're limited and continuously dwindling funds for space research, or we're going to be left in the dust "
  
  It's not "we're", it's "weir"!
The Concorde Beater! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 13:36 · Score: 0

Typical Yanks - 50 years late to the party!
Let me know... by the+eric+conspiracy · 2012-08-13 13:45 · Score: 2

When they add three more zeros to that speed. I wanna go to Alpha Centauri.
1. Re:Let me know... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 21:35 · Score: 0
  
  I'm not sure a scramjet would work for that.
Re:NY to Israel/Iran in 1 hour and a modest price by PopeRatzo · 2012-08-13 13:55 · Score: 1

In comparison, the NASA Curiosity rover costs $2.5 Billion USD.
You could build 17 X51-A jets for that price.
Yeah, but you don't get as many dead brown people with the NASA Curiosity. That's how Congress measures these things. Dead foreigners per million dollars.
Guess which type of project is going to disappear first with our new austerity-minded overlords?

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Weaponization and First Strike Advantage by popo · 2012-08-13 14:01 · Score: 0

Am I the only one who looks at this thing and thinks the whole "Jet" and "Plane" terminology is pentagon spin for what is really being built here?
Aside from the fact that it looks exactly like a missile -- which I understand is a matter of aerodynamics -- the ability to first strike is going to be enhanced enormously with this development. I can't help noticing that these "New York to London" metrics spouted by the Pentagon are carefully constructed "spin" to frame the X-51 in a "civilian transport" context.
The X-51 is decades away from transportation use. But it's probably usable in a much closer timeframe as a weaponized delivery system.
This "jet" is a *military* game-changer, IMHO. And it won't be changing the face of transportation any time soon.

--
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
1. Re:Weaponization and First Strike Advantage by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 14:29 · Score: 0
  
  Nah, let's just get that rail gun mounted on a ship already. The projectiles and 'fuel' are much cheaper and it would be total funniez as we can just knock out targets all the live long day and no one will know it's us -- until they develop technology to spot the massive use of electricity on the ship. But hey, this sort of competition is what moves us forward people!
2. Re:Weaponization and First Strike Advantage by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 14:40 · Score: 0
  
  No, you are not alone.
  The pentagram doesn't spend money developing new systems for peace, yet. ("We don't do nation building," said Donald Rumsfeld. They left it to exiled bankers, like Chalabi.)
  The military development of peace only comes after shock, awe and total domination; it will come later. First they have to finish the evolution their title, from Department of War, to Department of Defense and thence on to Department of Peace.
  By then you won't be able to tell the difference between war and peace times because we'll have military bases all over the world, and our troops will be monitoring peaceful transitions from old world regimes to newly upgraded summertime democracies that we can count on to help us fulfill the mandate of worldwide rule of law under kinder friendlier adherents to free trade and equal opportunity for all who can afford it.
3. Re:Weaponization and First Strike Advantage by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 14:46 · Score: 0
  
  FALCON (Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States)
  two major components:
  1) a vehicle for launching the hypersonic weapons platform
  2) the hypersonic vehicle itself.
4. Re:Weaponization and First Strike Advantage by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 18:26 · Score: 0
  
  Yup. Google "India Russia hypersonic cruise missile"; being an airbreather means it should have considerably longer range than a rocket - probably not as long as the slower guys (tomahawks etc) but wow - getting on 2km/s is impressive. I wonder how low they can do that...
5. Re:Weaponization and First Strike Advantage by Jeng · 2012-08-14 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  You don't even need to get that complicated. The projectile will provide a hole, with that hole you will be able to tell which direction the projectile came from.
  
  --
  Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
6. Re:Weaponization and First Strike Advantage by T+Murphy · 2012-08-14 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  I can't help noticing that these "New York to London" metrics spouted by the Pentagon are carefully constructed "spin" to frame the X-51 in a "civilian transport" context.
  And every time a distance or area is expressed in terms of football fields, the statistic was sponsored by the NFL? Or maybe New York to London is a common metric for describing how fast something flies (especially from when you could compare that flight time to the Concorde).
  
  --
  My webcomic
Austin's chances this time around? by TempestRose · 2012-08-13 14:31 · Score: 1

I hope Steve has a better bail-out option this time around. All I've seen so far are some half assed bionic eyes, unless the OSS is keeping the best for their own agents... No running at this point baby!
V3 ? by formfeed · 2012-08-13 14:52 · Score: 1

This isn't a jet-plane. It's a fucking missile.
Okay. So it could blow up London in about an hour.
Since in the goodol'days NASA got a jump-start with rockets originally designed to reach London, blowing up London adds a very nice touch.
1. Re:V3 ? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 19:15 · Score: 1
  
  I think you mean the Goddard'Ol'Days
2. Re:V3 ? by Gilmoure · 2012-08-14 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  *Golf Clap*
  
  --
  I drank what? -- Socrates
140 million? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 15:00 · Score: 0

funny how it takes the yanks 140 million to build something the Australians at qut invented for under a million.
1. Re:140 million? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 16:27 · Score: 0
  
  How far and what was the top speed of it? How did it handle mach 9 and mach 20? X51A did just fine with mach 7, but suffered a flame-out after 3 minutes of flight time. And how was the rocket that they bought to fly it on? I mean for that cool million, they DID build an interesting craft to test the engine, as well as send up multiple missions. Right?
2. Re:140 million? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 17:15 · Score: 0
  
  Most of those details aren't available, but it did fly at mach 7 on 2002 july 30 (the previous launch failed due to a hole in a fin) The Americans wouldn't of bough a lemon. Also It was university of Queensland (not qut, sorry brain fart). Sure it was the prototype and not a practically production ready machine, but still it's a big markup (i guess that's what you get when you hire military contractors instead of students).
3. Re:140 million? by jacknifetoaswan · 2012-08-14 00:58 · Score: 1
  
  When you hire military contractors, you get rigorous testing, thorough code and design reviews, and an engineering process that can be duplicated. What increases the cost of a program is requirement changes, and from someone who works for a contractor, the government changes their requirements CONSTANTLY, but never wants to pay for them. When you read about Nunn-McCurdy breaches, it's typically because someone decided to change a major requirement AFTER design reviews had been completed, or during low level production!
Congrats... by Nexion · 2012-08-13 15:18 · Score: 1

On your uber fast missile. I'll be impressed when you can put a human in it without killing him/her.
1. Re:Congrats... by tnk1 · 2012-08-13 15:56 · Score: 2
  
  You mean like every rocket that has ever launched a human into space? Or the SR-71 which wasn't as fast, but operated at a higher ceiling than this test?
  Putting a human in a Mach 5 aircraft is not going to be that difficult. Getting the damn thing to be anywhere near economical running at Mach 5 will be the problem.
Re:huray(sic) for proofreading by DarwinSurvivor · 2012-08-13 16:45 · Score: 1

Not to mention the lack of a SUBJECT!
Re:that's by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 17:04 · Score: 0

Legit point. But...
http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/
It's just a test vehicle by Animats · 2012-08-13 17:08 · Score: 1

This is just a small test vehicle. It's to answer the question "How do we make a scramjet that actually works"? There have been scramjet projects since the 1950s, but only in the last 10 years has there been much success. The problems are huge.
There's some hope that this might eventually lead to launch vehicles that are air-breathing up to Mach 15 or so, allowing a bigger payload fraction for the vehicle size. At one time, it was hoped this might bring down launch costs, but probably not.
As a weapon system, it's an awfully expensive way to put one non-nuclear bomb on target.
Has a big fuel tank by RNLockwood · 2012-08-13 17:09 · Score: 1

It can go from NY to London in an hour? Wow, it must have a big fuel tank and be really efficient.

--
Nate
NY to London in 1 hour? What about TSA checks? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2012-08-13 17:19 · Score: 1

Maybe the flight only takes one hour, but with the long, slow security check lines, the entire trip still takes a day.
NASA should invent something that makes the TSA work faster.
Or, even better, with Stealth technology, maybe they could make it disappear altogether?

--
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Why use meters/second? by Shag · 2012-08-13 17:24 · Score: 1

Okay, it's metric, sure, but so is km/hour. The weather center where I work reads out windspeed in m/sec, but the wind usually isn't blowing at 3,800 mph, and I've never seen m/sec used for vehicle speeds before. All it does is give you a number about half as big as mph, or 1/3.6 of km/h - is this complain for some reason?

--
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
1. Re:Why use meters/second? by Kidbro · 2012-08-14 00:14 · Score: 1
  
  For supersonic speeds it makes a bit of sense, given that the obvious point of reference for objects moving that fast is the speed of sound. Military fighters often have their speed reported in mach. Most people know the speed of sound in m/s, few know it in km/h.
  I agree though, km/h probably makes more sense for a passenger aircraft, but m/s is still a fairly sane unit, IMO.
  
  --
  May we live long and die out
This is what fly tests are for ... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 17:24 · Score: 0

I mean this time do keep the tether on, guys !
It's not supersonic, it's hypersonic by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · 2012-08-13 18:22 · Score: 5, Informative

Above Mach 5 or so you have to start considering different physics about the air flow.
1. Re:It's not supersonic, it's hypersonic by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 04:52 · Score: 0
  
  It's not supersonic, it's hypersonic
  Of course it's supersonic. Think about the roots of that word. It's highly supersonic.
Metrics aside by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 18:43 · Score: 0

1700 meters per second is a measly 6.815025 miles per second. This is very measly 0.000036584c. That NASA is flying this beast truly is news for nerds, and it is stuff that does matter. Its just that it could matter more.
1. Re:Metrics aside by wisdom_brewing · 2012-08-14 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  ...
  
  ...
  
  Glad you got the capitalisation of c correct (unlike a lot of other posts here) but you should really look up what a mile is in metric.
  
  --
  I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
I looked at the thing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 19:06 · Score: 0

Its not a plane, its a missile. Being able to fly 628 miles in 5 minutes up to an altitude of 70,000 feet, unmanned, sounds like a surface to air missile to me. All we need is a first stage rocket to get us up to the speed where the scramjet can start. Enough JP7 to last for 5 minutes will give us a 628 mile range (plus the range of the first stage rocket). You get greater range with an air breathing engine than with a rocket powered engine. At that speed you don't even need munitions in the thing, all you have to slam into whatever you are aiming at, and it will fall from the sky like a brick. Even the speed "1700 meters per second" isn't a typical description of aircraft speed: its a term normally associated with muzzle velocity.
1. Re:I looked at the thing by HArchH · 2012-08-15 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  Its not a plane, its a missile.
  While the X-51A is launched with a rocket, it has an air-breathing engine on board. It has control surfaces rather than directional thrusters. Are those not the key differences between an aircraft and missile? I would call the X-51A an aircraft.
2. Re:I looked at the thing by RockDoctor · 2012-08-15 18:33 · Score: 1
  
  The V1 "buzz bomb" in world war two had control surfaces (controlled IIRC by a combination of clockwork timers and a mechanical gyrocompass) and an air-breathing engine. So, was it an aircraft or a missile.
  Missiles go from point A to point B. Craft take something from point A to point B, deliver it, and are then ready for use to go to point C. Like an ox-cart, instead of an arrow. Does that work better as a distinction?
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
1700 m/s : twice as fast as a bullet by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-13 20:06 · Score: 0

It's about twice as fast as a bullet coming out an assault rifle !
According to Wikipedia the fastest AK74 bullet is clocked at 804.7 m/s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62%C3%9739mm
1. Re:1700 m/s : twice as fast as a bullet by Weatherlawyer · 2012-08-14 01:47 · Score: 0
  
  An AK 47 isn't exactly used for its long range effects.
  hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/MariaPereyra.shtml:
  "The velocity (speed) of rifle bullets varies between 600 and 5000 feet (180 and 1500 meters) per second. Some bullets can hit targets as far away as 6000 ...
The MX by dave25 · 2012-08-13 23:13 · Score: 1

Reminds me of the big missile the baddies tried to kill Superman with in no. 3
Re:The Concorde Beater! by trevc · 2012-08-14 01:22 · Score: 1

And way more expensive.
Quantum Fighter? by DarthVain · 2012-08-14 02:35 · Score: 1

Whereby flying it you are both dead and alive at the same time?
To steal a line from a good movie! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 08:27 · Score: 0

I GOT TO HAVE me one of these!
d'uh by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-14 14:27 · Score: 0

The purpose of war is money, not winning. If it were so, Vietnam would have been a whitewash.... 1.5million Viet dead vs 58,220 U.S. service personnel.
A Saturn 5 can carry 100+ tonnes to orbit.....say a 1MT MIRV weighs 6 tonnes.... that's 16 x 1MT detonations = war over...same deal in Iraq.
The US is not interested in winning any war.
Crash and burn... by HArchH · 2012-08-15 13:25 · Score: 1

Word on the news is that the flight didn't go well, and the aircraft broke up less than a minute into its flight.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/15/usa-hypersonic-flight-idINL2E8JFBYF20120815
6 Million dollars by funky_vibes · 2012-08-15 14:29 · Score: 1

I hope they've factored in the 6 million dollars it'll cost to repair the pilot if there's a crash.
Also, Rudy Wells needs to be put on stand-by.