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Bloodhound's 1,000 MPH Car Project Needs Money (theguardian.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the car-payments dept.

AmiMoJo quotes the Guardian: Plans to build a British jet-powered car to speed at more than 1,000mph through the desert have hit quicksand, after the company behind the Bloodhound project entered administration. The dream of an ultra-fast car to break the land speed record led to the creation of Bloodhound Programme Ltd in 2007, with the idea of also engaging schools and students in engineering. Bloodhound has already built and tested a viable racing car to speeds of 200mph, but the project is in debt and needs to find £25m or face being wound up... Bloodhound said its programme had been a catalyst for research and development, as well as helping interest schoolchildren worldwide in science and engineering, with an associated educational campaign reaching more than 2 million children...

The planned car is a combination of jet, F1 car and spaceship that would cover the length of four and a half football pitches in a second.

5 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Nope. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, it doesn't.

    I'm trying to figure out how to burn money less efficiently, aside from straight up burning it.

    1. Re:Nope. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, this seems like a silly way to burn money. The best way of "engaging schools and students in engineering" is to involve them in solving real world problems that will benefit many people. This isn't doing that.

  2. Re:A horizontal rocket? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How is the goal anything different than an existing rocket with wheels on its side?

    It stays on the ground. That is the hard part. It is easy to make a rocket go fast. It is hard to control it.

    At 1000 mph, even a small amount of airflow under the car body will lift it off the ground, and in a fraction of a second you are completely airborne. Energy goes up as the square of velocity, so at 1000 mph, you have a hundred times as much energy as at 100 mph. The result is some spectacular crashes.

  3. Aren't we past this silly non-sense? by Qbertino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a huge jet turbine with wheels attached. Big fat hairy deal.
    I'm sure that was cool sometime in the early sixties or something, but come on, seriously?

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  4. Re:A horizontal rocket? by Spy+Handler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Agreed. I like motorsports and I like speed records, but I could never get excited about those things... it's just a rocket with wheels. Not a car.

    SR-70 Blackbird has wheels, it can roll on the ground very well, but I wouldn't call it a car. A car is propelled by drive wheels. If your vehicle is jet propelled and the wheels don't do anything except get dragged along, it's not a car.