Scramjet!
First flight of the X-51A scramjet demonstrator is now on track for early December while captive carriage tests on the NASA-operated B-52H mothership at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., are set to begin in October.(via Aviation Week)A joint effort by the U.S. Air Force, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, and Boeing, the hypersonic vehicle is designed to be the first air-breathing craft to demonstrate sustained speeds in excess of Mach 4 using a “logistically friendly” hydrocarbon fuel.
Needs a boost from a rocket stage to get going, way too slow to achieve low Earth orbit, and probably going to be used for long-range cruise missiles or something equally gung-ho but it's a start . . .
posted by Paul McAuley at 6:19 pm
4 Comments:
Americans spend a whole lot of money on 'killing people technology.'
I'd like to see a fraction of this budget. I could live the rest of my life off a small piece of what is spent annually in our 'killing people technology' budget.
I live with the forlorn and somewhat foolish hope that swords like this will one day be beaten into ploughshares.
Is there a specific word for that particular brand of glum optimism that seems to infect so many of us science junkies?
The Germans probably have some long compound word for it.
Weltzukünftigeverlassenehoffnung or something similar.
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