« How the New York Times can take on Google and win | Main | The 15 properties of a good conceptual model »
April 6, 2006
Hypersonic jets: New York to Australia in two hours
In Wednesday's Wall Street Journal (sorry, no link available), Ann Keeton profiled the cutting-edge research that's being done on hypersonic jets. The concept is pretty cool: two-hour flights from New York to Sydney in aircrafts flying at Mach 10. That's more than 7,000 miles per hour, and nearly 10 times the speed of sound. According to Keeton, hypersonic flight is almost here as the result of revolutionary advances in new "scramjet" engine technology:
"The scramjet engine is the key to self-propelled, rather than rocket-powered, hypersonic flight, defined as a speed of Mach 5 to Mach 10, or five to ten times the speed of sound. The engine has no moving parts, with fuel combustion occurring in a supersonic rush of air through its interior. Scramjets are cheaper to fly than rocket engines because they don't require an onboard supply of oxygen. Instead, they suck it right out of the air."
Although the first research on scramjets started in 1958, the first test flight only occurred 46 years later, in 2004, when NASA flew the X-43. As might be imagined, the U.S. military is quite interested in the idea of some hypersonic applications. Take the idea of a hypersonic missile: "It could travel three times faster, or three times farther, than current missiles, giving the U.S. a big strategic advantage. If you can go 500 miles in 15 minutes, you can really reach out and touch someone."
Anyway, if you're interested in reading more about scramjets and hypersonic travel, check out the NASA Web site, which also features videoclips of the X-43.
Tags: X-43 hypersonic scramjet innovation
Posted by dominic at April 6, 2006 5:58 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
|
