NASA's X-43A reaches Mach 7
NASA's experimental X-43A using SCRAM jet technology made a successful flight yesterday. The conventional jet engine compresses incoming air using its fans a SCRAN jet uses its hypersonic speed to compress the incoming air.
This is the type of stuff NASA should focus on. Not some moon base or an out of reach goal like sending a man to Mars. We need some bang for our buck.
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This is the type of stuff NASA should focus on. Not some moon base or an out of reach goal like sending a man to Mars. We need some bang for our buck.
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Comments
Originally posted by ipodandimac
i thought it was pretty cool stuff, especially when they lost immediate contact because it had already flown over the horizon.
Should've placed more points of communication along its flightpath, methinks.
Awesome news, though. The sooner that technology like this can power a practical shuttle replacement, the better.
Originally posted by billybobsky
And where pre-tell are we going to get the hydrogen to fuel these wonderful flight?
Well, there's hydrogen in water... We have quite a bit of that on our planet, you know.
Oh, and it's "pray tell," not "pre-tell."
Hydrogen is the only fuel source that makes sense going forward.
Originally posted by Scott
This is the type of stuff NASA should focus on. Not some moon base or an out of reach goal like sending a man to Mars. We need some bang for our buck.
I agree. I want to get to the moon first, set up a mining facility on the dark side, and claim the rest of it. Of course, I'll need some kind of fusion powered spaceships to get there, but let's worry about that later.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Water, hydrocarbons, methane, plants, animals, people... take yer pick.
Hydrogen is the only fuel source that makes sense going forward.
I love hearing this "in these times". Hydrogen is so compressed and explosive yet everyone is clamoring to make it power city busses, cars, planes etc.
Who need plastic explosives ala Al Qaeda/Spain when all you'd need to do is shoot a crummy bullet up into the tanks.
Sure, gasoline blows up but with less force by orders of magnitude than compressed hydrogen.
Mehinks we need to kill off all the "bad people" before hydrogen will be safe to use in mass scale. (I guess we are trying to anyway).
The irony is that we of course do need to not use oil, the sooner the better. But not buying oil anymore will destroy the arab nations' economies all together, perhaps making even more desperate terrorists?
But maybe, facing economic extinction, tourism, (the last "reason" the world has to invest in the middleast) might replace terrorism once oil becomes useless? Nice to think.
Originally posted by johnq
I love hearing this "in these times". Hydrogen is so compressed and explosive yet everyone is clamoring to make it power city busses, cars, planes etc.
Who need plastic explosives ala Al Qaeda/Spain when all you'd need to do is shoot a crummy bullet up into the tanks.
Sure, gasoline blows up but with less force by orders of magnitude than compressed hydrogen.
Hydride metal salts are nearly inert, and easily catalyzable to gaseous state on demand.
*NO ONE* is, or ever has, advocated compressed hydrogen gas a viable fuel source... that's just FUD from the same yahoos that still think the Hindenberg went up because it was a hydrogen zeppelin. Hint: The skin was painted with a thick layer of a viscous hydrocarbon to seal it against hydrogen leakage... we now call that mixture *rocket fuel*. THAT is what burned so incredibly. Note the broken back of the fuselage - hydrogen goes *up*, it would have escaped quickly... hydrogen burns almost immediately, and nearly invisibly... not in thick black smoke. Rocket fuel does. That imagery, however, has set back public acceptance of hydrogen fuel sources by decades.
Originally posted by Splinemodel
I agree. I want to get to the moon first, set up a mining facility on the dark side, and claim the rest of it.
We'll, you better talk to the RIAA about that, because the Dark Side of the Moon is entirely covered in Pink Floyd albums. Happy mining.
Originally posted by johnq
I
Mehinks we need to kill off all the "bad people" before hydrogen will be safe to use in mass scale. (I guess we are trying to anyway).
and become the bad people in the process.
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
and become the bad people in the process.
I wasn't endorsing it, merely lamenting the inevitable/obvious/potential. (Although I have zero empathy for anything remotely Al Qaeda or terrorist-like. Kill 'em all, with my tax dollars. I'll do it myself if I comes to that. :shrug: )
Anyway yeah....Mach 7.
So what next, SCRAMJET Patriot or ICBM missiles?
Originally posted by johnq
So what next, SCRAMJET Patriot or ICBM missiles?
Almost; scramjet propulsion probably wouldn't be practical for an ICBM, since they're flying outside the Earth's atmosphere.
Check out MBDA's upcoming Meteor air-to-air missile, which uses a "variable flow ducted rocket ramjet" to achieve a range increase over ordinary rocket-powered missiles.
Raytheon in the US is doing something similar with future AIM-120 variants ("FMRAAM"), and the Russians have apparently produced a rocket ramjet-powered R-77M (RVV-AE-PD) with a very impressive range of about 160 km.
Originally posted by johnq
But maybe, facing economic extinction, tourism, (the last "reason" the world has to invest in the middleast) might replace terrorism once oil becomes useless? Nice to think.
The middle east is a desert and it deserves to be void of life. Every idiot who has earned money calls himself a prince and pretends to be royalty in that joint. I can't imagine touring that wasteland now, let alone in the future when they have no money to sustain themselves.
Back on topic, this is a major achievement for NASA. No more expensive rockets for lifting shuttles and satellites into space. They can drop off a B-52 carrier and propel themselves into orbit (in theory).
Originally posted by Daver
Almost; scramjet propulsion probably wouldn't be practical for an ICBM, since they're flying outside the Earth's atmosphere.
Check out MBDA's upcoming Meteor air-to-air missile, which uses a "variable flow ducted rocket ramjet" to achieve a range increase over ordinary rocket-powered missiles.
Raytheon in the US is doing something similar with future AIM-120 variants ("FMRAAM"), and the Russians have apparently produced a rocket ramjet-powered R-77M (RVV-AE-PD) with a very impressive range of about 160 km.
actually, exo-atmospheric use of hydrogen was an early proposal for scramjet technology in sci-fi
it has long been theorized that enough interstellar hydrogen exists to power a spacecraft with a Bussard collector as a gigantic hydrogen scoop. In order to generate measurable gains, the volume of hydrogen collected would require a massive collector and extremely high speeds. It would only be possible to enable the scramjet once you were already at speed significant enough to "pre-charge" the engine with ambient hydrogen, so it has always been proposed as a 2nd or 3rd stage propulsion technology... you've got to get to Mach y or y percent of C before the fuel flow is sufficient net gain.
Trek fans may recognize the name "Bussard collector", named after the real scientist Robert W. Bussard (whose 1990 paper "Fusion as Electric Propulsion" is cited here
see also the sci-fi usage of Bussard Ramjet
as a technology demonstrator flight, however, the X-43 is doing well.
nice to know they fixed the bugs that seemed to plague the last test.
this air-breathing technology is expected to top out at Mach 15, 60% of orbital velocity
Originally posted by curiousuburb
actually, exo-atmospheric use of hydrogen was an early proposal for scramjet technology in sci-fi
it has long been theorized that enough interstellar hydrogen exists to power a spacecraft with a Bussard collector as a gigantic hydrogen scoop
Bussard collects hydrogen for fusion.
Scramjet collects oxygen for combustion of an on-board hydrogen fuel tank.
Big difference.
A scramjet won't work outside the atmosphere, obviously.
Originally posted by curiousuburb
...
this air-breathing technology is expected to top out at Mach 15, 60% of orbital velocity
Does that mean the top speed one way around the earth is faster than the other way around?
Originally posted by Scott
Does that mean the top speed one way around the earth is faster than the other way around?
relatively