India Plans Hypersonic Space Plane by 2007 566
MaximusTheGreat writes "While India has announced plans for a hypersonic plane (speeds greater than mach 5) before, this is the first time a firm date for test of an unmanned plane has been given. Final version of this plane called Aerobic Vehicle for Hypersonic Aerospace Transportation (AVATAR) is envisaged to deliver a 500 kg to 1,000 kg payload to low earth orbit. It will reduce the cost of space travel to a fraction to what it is today, by being completely reusable. Also, by allowing hypersonic speeds, it would for example reduce the travel time from Sydney, Australia to New York to less than 3 hrs. The crucial technology in the development of Hypersonic planes is supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet). India has already demonstrated the basic technology of ramjets by the development of world's fastest cruise missile Brahmos which outspeeds famous US Tomahawk by three times, and by ground tests of scramjets. US, Australia and Japan are also pursuing similar programs."
Great... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great... (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a couple of links that compares and contrasts these two.
I don't understand the way the combination of the two would work.
Space Plane Link [howstuffworks.com]
Hypersonic Plane Link [howstuffworks.com]
Davak
Just the usual... (Score:2, Insightful)
Because something travelling at Mach 5 max will never reach escape velocity. So this thing is suborbital at best.
Not to mention scramjets only work from Mach 2 or thereabouts, so you need an alternative engine to speed the plane up to Mach 2, then you use the scramjet to go up to Mach 5. Plus there is the additional problem that liquid hydrogen is low density, cryogenic fuel.
Re:Just the usual... (Score:2)
No current space transport device reaches escape velocity becuase you would get astrounaut pate on the back of the cockpit.
Um. No.
Re:Great... RTA (Score:3, Insightful)
It scoops oxygen in the atmosphers at hypersonic speeds, and then oes into space.
Indian engineering (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Indian engineering (Score:2, Funny)
And in other news: Pakistan is planning a Venus landing by 2009! And last I heard Cambodia is bouncing back from Pol Pot and is planning to resettle all the former Khmer Rouge on Mars byt 2010!
I mean seriously, WTF is the deal with all these HUUUUUGE announcements? These countries (China, India, et al) have larger problems than the lack of a space program, don't have the resources to actually fund OR launch these programs (over half of india can't READ!), etc.
We may have to see this kind of never gonna
In a stunning announcement (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In a stunning announcement (Score:5, Funny)
I can see this making some people nervous (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I can see this making some people nervous (Score:2, Interesting)
I *am* nervous.
Re:I can see this making some people nervous (Score:2)
Re:I can see this making some people nervous (Score:2, Insightful)
Or because democracies with judeo-christion roots are known never to start a war?
Please go check some history (even recent events) and come back.
Jeroen
Re:I can see this making some people nervous (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
The Pakastan/India conflict is eventually going to explode.
So sad.
Davak
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Interesting)
In the US, for example, it's hard to imagine that considerations of intellectual property, patents, NDA's and the like would have been allowed to hamstring the development of strategic military technologies. But peacetime
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
The only thing that pakistanis have that makes people in US equate them is some chinese nukes with north korean missile.
Anyway, India is developing its military potential not in race with Pakistan, but its other neighbor China.
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
And you can thank the britshit for this. Before they lay their dirty hands on India, everyone there lived together. Now, it's three different countries who hate each other's guts.
The britshit are very good with partitionning countries, and it always blows-up in their face: Ireland, India, Koweit.
Perhaps it is time to get rid the world of the anglo-saxon incompetence, because whenever anglo-saxons touch something, they fuck it up irremediably.
D
What? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Tomahawk cruise missile was intentionally made subsonic. The sound from a supersonic cruise missile with a range in exceess of 800 miles would negate much of the stealth aspect of the missile.
If you want to compare it to a US missile, compare it to some of our anti-ship or anti-air missiles.
What, Insightfull? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pray explain what noise would make it audible before it physicaly arrives.
It's Supersonic i.e, faster than sound!!
The fact that the bang might be heard and the news radioed ahead is rather trivial as cruise missiles don't need to follow a straight line of attack.
Re:What, Insightfull? (Score:2)
Ah, but that's the wonder of radio - its omni-directional. You don't need to tell one potential target that a cruise missile's coming. You tell every target you deem important that its on its way, and they throw up a wall of fire or do whatever they need to to shoot it down when its within range.
Re:What, Insightfull? (Score:5, Insightful)
Advanced warning of a cruise missile attack would still allow evacuations and air defense response. The targets of cruise missiles would be fairly obvious - command and control, airfields, power stations, etc., regardless of the evasive path the missile might take.
Re:What, Insightfull? (Score:2)
Re:What, Insightfull? (Score:2)
Re:What, Insightfull? (Score:3, Interesting)
Faster than sound does not mean faster than light or electricity. If it travels more than 200 KM, there is plenty of time to bring most defenses on-line. Obviously, if it is only traveling 50 KM, then you are most likely gone before advance warning can happen. That simply begs the question of why did you allow somebody that close.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of negates a lot of the advantage of the speed. The Tomahwak may take longer to get there, but because of its range, retaliatory strikes are difficult to make, and there is plenty of time to be prepared for them and attempt to defeat them.
Or viewed another way, the Brahmos may be plenty fast and plenty accurate and have a low radar signature, but you shoot you Brahmos at me and I'll shoot my Tomahawk at you. 20 minutes after the Brahmos fell in the ocean because it ran out of fuel, my Tomahawk will arrive at your location.
Also, they make no mention of air or submarine launch capabilities, something Tomahawks have long had. Only land and surface ship launches are mentioned in the Brahmos article. In view of its short range and limited launch options, I don't see Brahmos taking center stage away from the Tomahawk anytime soon.
Re:What? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:2)
Scramjet research on a shoestring (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Scramjet research on a shoestring (Score:2)
Really? $150 million in new funding was announced in October [space.com], and they had been planning a flight for mid-December [avweb.com] which didn't eventuate, but I can't find anything about it being cancelled. It's probably just been postponed. Again.
India does something & nuclear angle comes in (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't understand why everytime India advances technologically, people immediately think "oh they have nuclear weapons". The United States has Nuclear weapons and continues to develop and is the *only* country to ever have used them in war - and it is very debatable whether they needed to - definitely, not the second bomb.
Anyway, I digress - the point I am trying to make, why don't we see this as it is - other countries (besides the US, Germany, UK, France) are also trying to develop advanced avaition an
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if you assume that India will never use thier nukes, won't an increase in power on thier part make thier neighbors feel that they need to increase thier military power as well?
On the other hand, cheap space travel is really cool no matter who is developing it..
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:2)
Probably because, unlike the US or Russia, they have no agreement with other countries on what they can/cannot do with those nuclear devices (regardless of the fact that we don't always respect the agreements).
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:5, Interesting)
By the way India has a declared No-First-Use policy, while USA has a declared Pre-emptive-strike policy. And, US has exercised that poilicy once, and with the new tactical nukes it plans to do so again and again.
which nuke power is more dangerous?
Nuclear weapons are useless in all regards (Score:2)
Not really. The whole "nuclear deterrent" thing is grossly overrated. If any one country decided to attack another- it'd start world war three, and it'd pretty much be "Us versus the World". Pakistan wouldn't stand a chance against even one world superpower, and China survives off its exports to prevent its economy from coll
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:3, Informative)
I've got to laugh at your opinion that until 1903 the US wasn't imperialistic. I guess the Lousiania Purchase, the American-Indian wars, the Spanish-American war, and the Mexican-American war isn't something you're too familiar with. Try a little research before you make a complete jackass
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe is somewhat different. Western Europe is very much a post-modern society, whose power is economic and diplomatic (and in those areas FAR exceeds the US's power). And has little interest in Imperialism of any kind.
Ok, first of all--Europe is a post-modern society?? What the hell does that mean?!
Not interested in Imperialism? Really? Tell that to the French neo-colonies in West Africa. I wish I still had the link, I saw a great picture after France unilaterally sent troops in Cote d'Ivoire of Ivoirians holding up signs saying "Bush! Save us from the French!" Better yet, tell that to all the struggling 3rd world farmers who are oppressed by subsidized European agricultural goods. Economic imperialism at its finest!
You think European economic and diplomatic power far exceeds the US? Well, the economic point is so laughable as to not even deserve refutation, and the I'll refute the second below!
Also, show me some European led international diplomacy that has gone succesfully without US participation? They've certainly managed to do a bang up job in the middle east! Who is spear heading peace in the Middle East right now? The US. Who was responsible for peace between Israel and Egypt. Largely the US! Who is responsible for Libya opening? The US! Who is responsible for recent NK negotiations? The US. Show me ANY comparable European led initiatives.
Which is strange as the US just over a 100 years ago also lacked imperial ambition - but then post WW2 took serveral major steps backwards (imo): Vietnam, Panama, Iraq 2003.
Inaccurate representation of American history--you need to go much farther back. Hell, start looking back to the 1840's if you want to see American imperialism in its nascent form. You absolutely cannot say that American imperialism starts post-ww2. I can list examples if you don't know them, or are interested, just reply, I'd be glad to.
So personally I'm relaxed about West European countries (and I include Canada, Australia and New Zealand in that group as culturally they are) having nukes. The US, India and Pakistan owning nukes however scares the crap out of me.
If you're European all I can say is, WW2 would have been much nicer had the US not joined the European front, and had the US not nuked Japan. Things would have been rosy and happy all around! And since then, America's nuclear atrocities are absolutely unforgivable. Your post is truly insightful!
Europe and America (Score:4, Insightful)
Not interested in Imperialism? Really? Tell that to the French neo-colonies in West Africa. I wish I still had the link, I saw a great picture after France unilaterally sent troops in Cote d'Ivoire of Ivoirians holding up signs saying "Bush! Save us from the French!"
Like others have pointed out, such pictures can be misleading. How do you know the people asking for Bush's "protection" weren't supporters of one or the other faction in the civil war?
You think European economic and diplomatic power far exceeds the US? Well, the economic point is so laughable as to not even deserve refutation.
Actually, the EU's total GDP as of 1999 was about the same as that of the US; once EU enlargement takes place this year, with the accession of Poland, Hungary et. al., the EU's GDP will actually be larger than that of the US (though per capita GDP will be rather lower). Many member states export proportionally far more than the US as well -- such as Germany, for example.
Furthermore, the Euro has succeeded in becoming the largest reserve currency after the US dollar, and continues to grow in usage (one reason for the dollar's decline in value recently -- many countries are partially switching reserves to Euros to spread out their risks).
Oh, and half of the G8 are in the EU -- France, the UK, Germany and Italy.
The EU's economic influence is thus hardly "laughable" at all...
As for European diplomacy succeeding with or without American participation, one can quite easily turn your statement on its head and point out that American diplomacy doesn't work in a vacuum -- American initiatives tend to work far, far better when the Europeans are on board. Think of it as the "good cop, bad cop" routine. Worked brilliantly in Iran recently, as the Iranians agreed top open up to the IAEA (after intense consultations with EU members as well as having American troops on its borders).
A final point about 'European' diplomacy: don't forget that the EU is really just a collection of nation-states, and can only act as a unit in nearly all cases when a consensus amongst those states has been reached.
In that light, to blame "Europe" for diplomatic weakness is misguided: the EU is weak, but its individual members still have quite a lot of influence abroad -- far, far more than other countries of similar size. France, Spain and the UK all punch far above their weight, and Germany is also taking an ever higher profile in recent years.
No offense intended, but such blinkered remarks are why many non-Americans get so exasperated with us -- factually wrong (or iffy) boasts, filled with misinformed chest-pounding about our supposed achievements and so on. We as Americans do have much to be proud of, but that doesn't mean we need to overdo it -- nor does it mean we need to rub everyone else's faces in it (especially not when we claim too much credit). Not a good way to make friends and keep them.
Cheers,
Ethelred
American logic... (Score:3, Insightful)
European: "I think X is true, because of Y".
American: "We saved your ass in WW2. Therefore X is false. QED."
Am I the only person in America who can spot the logical error in this exchange??
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, as odd as it seems, I am not terribly worried about Iran's future. The population of Iran is VERY young. the majority of the population has been born after 1978 and the Religious revolution. The older generations remember the Shah and American aid and forced westernization.. The younger generations only know the strict religious rule and forced Islamic law etc. There is GREAT disatisfaction amongst the youth in Iran.
Ironically enough, the religious revolution brought the form of a true democr
US Imperial Ambition (Score:3, Insightful)
Some would argue that American imperial ambition began with the Declaration of Independence, and continued throughout the Western expansion -- that every square inch of what is today America was taken by force.
Even a less sanguine historian -- say, Mark Twain -- would agree that American imperialism was obvious by the time of the Phillipine war [freespeech.org].
-kg
Re:US Imperial Ambition (Score:2)
Some would be utterly wrong, then. The US peacefully and legally bought the Louisiana Purchase territories from France and Alaska from Russia.
Hardly taking by force.
I live right next to Australia... (Score:2)
They'd probably nuke Nauru just to rid themselves of a refugee problem. Or pre-emptively nuke Indonesia 'just in case they were developing their own nuclear programme'.
No mate, Aussie is in the same league as the US of A.
(For Aussies reading this; prove me wrong at your next general election; you have* to vote anyway so you may as well get it right).
(* voting is compulsory in Aussie. Very democratic, that).
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:2)
I'm Canadian and I don't feel relaxed if we did have nuclear weapons.
You are taking the same position that the US does. "Hey, we are not going to use them wrongly."
If they have them, they can use them. All it takes is one messed up situation.
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:4, Interesting)
Which was the last "war" that the so-called war-mongering India has started?
Hint: The last war India has been involved in ended in 1972. In it's 56-year history, India has initiated military action only once and that was to help Bangladesh gain its independence.
Meanwhile the great benevolent non-imperial nations of UK and France continue to maintain their colonies such as Falkland Islands and the islands in the South Pacific that France likes to blow up with nukes whenever it feels like pissing off the Aussies and Kiwis.
And I won't even begin to dwell into the economic imperialism that Europe is imposing upon Africa. European nations also have a long way to go before they can be excused for the mess their greedy exploitation and subsequent hasty departure has left in large parts of Asia and Africa.
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:4, Insightful)
According to the article, there is evidence showing that at the time the bombs were dropped, Japan was communicating with Russia with the aim of having Russia act as an intermediary in negotiating a peace in the US. Further, the USA knew of this.
At that point in time, Japan was in a very poor position, running low on resources and having its cities severely bombed conventionally. Again, according to the article, provided that the terms of a peace would allow them to keep the Emperor, Japan was all too willing to surrender.
The choice wasn't between using atomic bombs or a land invasion. Given this situation, a land invasion, along with the concommitant loss of life, would have been simply unnecessary.
Note also: even if there had been a land invasion, the lives lost would have been chiefly confined to those in the armed forces of the two nations (note also that this figure as estimated today would have been similar to or less than the 160000 casualties of the Hiroshima bombing.) Dropping an atomic bomb on a city of course kills mainly civilians. Whether this is significant or not depends on your attitudes towards war.
PS: For comparison, the firebombing of Tokyo is said to have killed about 80000 to 100000 people. The firebombing of Dresden, between 25000 and 150000. With such attrocities it demonstrates that the actions of the victors in WWII were in the end no better than that of their foes, as regards the deliberate targetting of civilian populations. I guess you can always point a finger at the Germany and say 'they started it'
Defending America (Score:3, Insightful)
"No better"? As someone living in Germany (and married to a German), I can hardly
Re:India does something & nuclear angle comes (Score:2)
Asian Aerospace an exciting place these days (Score:2, Insightful)
Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Western countries have lost their population advantage long ago - there are much more Chinese and Indians than Europeans and Americans.
The military advantage is already gone in thecase of e.g. France or UK or is already decreasing like e.g. US and Germany.
The industrial advantage is also gone: most industrial consumer products are not produced in Western countries these days leading to the huge trade deficit of the US.
What is remaining is the technological advantage.
However, India and China are catching up.
The US has traditional 2 strategies to keep this advantage:
Re:Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Blocking advancement in 3rd world countries by covering every rubbish with patents.
Patents currently work on a per-country basis. The Chinese can develop whatever they like under their own system. If Western civilization does crumble, as you predict, then China won't be interested in selling to the US so much anymore, but to its own citizens and neighbours, whose patents will be different to those of the US.
The military advantage is already gone in thecase of e.g. France or UK or is already decreasing like e.g. US and Germany.
Germany has a weak military compared to both the UK and France. I'm not sure where you're getting your statistics from. You're also confusing military power with power in general. Israel has a very powerful army by international standards, but they're hardly a superpower in any sense.
You have also missed that the UK (and the US, to a point) holds an advantage over its European peers by being the world's largest creditor, raking in billions from ever growing third world debt.
I do not see the gloom and doom you seem to, however. I think the development of the second and third worlds will improve the world as a whole, even if it puts a little dent into our own standard of living. As a supplier, myself, I'll take a dip in my standard of living if it means I can have the whole world as a giant marketplace, rather than just the US and Europe.
Re:Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:2)
So how does the US get away with telling Brazil and other 3rd world countries that they can't distribute to their citizens their own generic versions of AIDS drugs that are under US patents?
Re:Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:3, Informative)
References? Germany [cia.gov] and UK [cia.gov] spent $38.8 billion and $31.7 billion on the military in 2002. France [cia.gov] spent $46.5 billion. Perhaps you're referring to Germany's lack [wikipedia.org] of nuclear weapons?
Re:Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:5, Insightful)
*cough*Until about 100 years ago the US was way behind Europe in general and the UK in particular.
Countries catching up is perfectly normal. In any case - what makes you so special ? Is there something you did that makes you deserve to be "ahead' of Indians, Chinese, whatever ? Or was that just an accident of birth ?
Personally I look forward to the day the whole world is without poverty and want. And there isn't one dominating military super-power.
Zero sum gain (to win someone else has to lose) as an economic theory was discredited a long, long time ago.
Re:Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:2)
But they attacked Iraq! Wasn't that bold? No, there wa
Re:Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:2)
a)West has always been rich and powerful. FALSE
Figures for 1750
share of world wealth China+India ==56%
share of Asia == 80%
share of west = 18% share in word population
west = 20%
asia = 60%
And, this was true for pretty much all of the known history, asia being even wealthier as you go back in time. Why do you think columbus wanted to discover india? and ended up discovering America.
After 1750, bristish d
Re:Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:4, Interesting)
With more and more scientific advancements in ex-third world countries, I'm starting to wonder if this is the often predicted end of Western civilization.
Even if we accept the implicit assumption that so called ex-third world countries are poor and backwards -- even when the people are poor, often the goverment isn't, but let's not even get into that -- their success doesn't necessarily take anything away from us. If I'm rich, and my neighbor is poor, but becomes rich, his becoming rich doesn't automatically make me any poorer. If my toaster learns how to talk and perform higher maths, I don't become any dumber. It's not always a zero-sum game. Western civilization will not end just because India improves itself.
The Western countries have lost their population advantage long ago - there are much more Chinese and Indians than Europeans and Americans.
"Population advantage"? What's that? Numbers are an advantage? It seems to me that the British Empire had a pretty good run -- tiny little Island dominating huge and populous territories.
Most people aren't white like you. It's always been that way. And that's the real issue here, isn't it? Sorry, man, but you're going to have to get used to the idea.
The military advantage is already gone in thecase of e.g. France or UK or is already decreasing like e.g. US and Germany.
Add Russia, and you've got the five largest navies in the world; airpower is roughly the same. Also, the major shareholders in the Nuke club. Other countries may be able to field more rifles, but both Iraq wars have shown how useful that is against a technologically superior foe.
The industrial advantage is also gone: most industrial consumer products are not produced in Western countries these days leading to the huge trade deficit of the US.
Five largest economies: US, Japan, Germany, France, UK. I think the order is about right, but I'm not sure. You can look up any of this stuff for yourself -- the CIA World Factbook is good, and available online. If the GDP of 50 million or so Brits is bigger than that of a billion-odd Chinese, it stands to reason that the West still has a little industry left, eh?
What is remaining is the technological advantage.
However, India and China are catching up.
The US has traditional 2 strategies to keep this advantage:
Sucking brillant minds out of 3rd world countries by getting them into the US via e.g. graduate schools.
And then a lot of them go back home. Which is fine. I know it doesn't fit very well with your war-of-cultures mindset, but more educated people means a better world for everybody, regardless of where they're from, or whether or not they look and talk like you. And Universities have always been magnets for foreigners.
Blocking advancement in 3rd world countries by covering every rubbish with patents.
Yeah, with those magical international patents we have.
However, both strategies are failing these days:
Foreign graduates from India and China are in fact returning to htheir home countries.
How dare they? Whoever could have forseen this?
By this they are exporting the US technology there and creating unbeatable (cost !) conpetitors to US businesses.
Allowing them to sell us cool things at reasonable prices, while the US, with its tremendous combination of physical and intellectual capital, abundant natural resources, stable government, and military hedgemony lumbers on, lordly, unconcerned.
With reducing importance of the US in the world
Unproven, and unsupportable.
China and other countries are less and less willing to accept the US patent dictatorship -
They never really were, and that was never the point.
killing the exploiting by IP strategy of the US.
Uhh. . . yeah.
Bush tries to cover these facts by mad
Re:Fall of Western civilization ? (Score:2, Insightful)
i think the indians and chinese are as capable of incompetence and boneheadedness as we are.
it is just a matter of their stage of development.
give them enough time and their brilliant engineers and scientists will be just as under the thumb of PHBs and lawyers as ours are.
I think that they could do it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I think that they could do it. (Score:2, Insightful)
20 years for a jet fighter-how long for this one (Score:4, Interesting)
So - if it has taken India 20 years to produce some Mach 1.5 aircraft, how long will it take to produce a usuable Mach 20 spacecraft?
sPh
Re:20 years for a jet fighter-how long for this on (Score:2)
Re:20 years for a jet fighter-how long for this on (Score:2)
That said, co
Re:20 years for a jet fighter-how long for this on (Score:4, Informative)
Not Su-35 (Score:3, Informative)
Priorities screwed (Score:3, Insightful)
Why ?
I regularly donate cash to charities to drill wells in India and other such poverty relief measures - and yet their government spends a ton of cash on nuclear weapons and prestige projects.
Time to redirect my charity I think.
Re:Priorities screwed (Score:2)
By developing high tech, India is trying to keep all its good engineers to go to the good old USA. See it is those engineers/scientists from all the other countries immigrating into US which have kept it rich. So, coming back to the fish analogy, India has two choices
a) Send the boat builders(engineers/scientists) to US, and get aids money
b) keep some of the boa
Regarding Cruise Missles (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yes, I'm not American, I'm Canadian. This is an objective perspective.
Re:Regarding Cruise Missles (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, India is in the midst of a minefield. Immediately bordering on India's west is Pakistan, its sworn enemy. Immedia
Moo (Score:2, Funny)
Would be Nice (Score:2)
The flight profile for a space launch by an Air breathing engine requires a great deal of acceleration to be done where there is still significant amounts of atmosphere to provide friction... the vehicle would essentially go through re-entry twice on a mission rather than just once ( shuttle does m
Re:Would be Nice (Score:2)
Mmmm (Score:3, Funny)
Sharks with laser beams... er, what was I thinking. Oh right, mmm num num.
Phone conversation to outsourced programmer (Score:2)
hmmmm..... yeah..... I'm going to need those TPS reports. Yeah, and uhm, no faxes. I don't know where you hide, but I'm going to have to ask you to walk right up here and hand those TPS reports to me. Yeah..
Response:
Your willing to pay for me to come to your office, very well sir.
Clueless Manager:
Yeah, and don't park in my spot when you get here.
AngryPeopleRule [angrypeoplerule.com]
India's Economy is Hypersonic too ... (Score:2)
I know the stock Markets are doing well world-wide, but here is what BBC caried on India's Economy yesterday.
Boom time for India's economy [bbc.co.uk]
And here is an article from yesterday's NY Times ...
Indian Soybean Farmers Join the Global Village [nytimes.com]
Aerospace question (Score:2)
Why is re-entry always performed by using the atmosphere for braking? What is the main obstacle to building a craft that uses its engines to reduce its speed to well below orbital velocity while "hovering" outside the atmosphere in a non-sustainable orbital path until it's slow enough to reduce stress from air resistance and heat? Maybe the cost incurred by carrying the controlled descent system around would be offset by sav
you can't hover in orbit... (Score:2)
To gain orbital 'altitude' you have to increase your orbiting speed tangental to the earth by firing your engines. Similarly, when you want to re-enter the atmosphere you fire your retro rockets to slow you down, but as you slow down you decrease your orbital altitude. At a certain speed you'll re-enter the atmosphere, but this speed is still relatively high and requires heat shields.
So to sum it up,
And I'm planning to become a billionaire by then (Score:2)
As a rocket booster (Score:2)
The China/India/Pakistan space race could be far more interesting - and given the new technologies available - productive than the USA/USSR one.
Vik
The problem with Scramjets is... (Score:3, Informative)
With a small unmanned craft the solution could be to use rocket boosters to get the vehicle up to around Mach 1 -- at which speed the SCRAMjet would be able to start producing sufficient thrust to continue the acceleration.
However, what do you do with a passenger craft filled with people. The acceleration to 0.9M is going to need to be done far more gently (or they'd spill their prawn cocktails and Bucks Fizz). Perhaps they plan to use conventional turbojet engines -- in which case you're now talking about a whole heap of additional weight (engines plus fuel) and drag that will penalise the hypersonic performance. and range.
Then there's the issue of landing...
Since the SCRAMjet will not provide any useful thrust at mid to low subsonic speeds, what safety margins are built in for aborted landings or other problems. Sure, the space shuttle can glide to a landing -- but it has a dedicated runway, clear airspace and only seven lives at risk.
Finally, one has to ask: just because we *can* build something, does that necessarily mean it's a sensible idea to do so?
Increasing the flight-speed of a craft is an expensive business in terms of energy consumption. To double the speed requires four times the power (all other aspects being equal) so to push a craft along at mach 5 would require 256 times as much thrust as it takes to push it along at mach 1.
Unless there's some clever magic involved, that means 256 times as much fuel being used to travel five times as fast -- making it 50 times *less* efficient in terms of miles to the gallon.
Now think about this for a minute.. would you pay 50 times as much as it presently costs to fly from one place to another if it meant saving a few hours?
The Concorde service died because it was too expensive and they only flew at Mach 2. How on earth then, could a hypersonic passenger service be economically viable?
And don't make the mistake of thinking that liquid hydrogen is going to be cheaper than Jet-A fuel, last time I checked it was almost identical.
A final note, even if this all panned out and India was able to introduce a hypersonic passenger jet service, would anyone use it? After all, just look at their railway safety record [google.co.nz]
Re:The problem with Scramjets is... (Score:3, Informative)
AVHAT? (Score:3, Insightful)
To what extent are we allowed to arbitrarily select letters to form a cool acronym?
Maybe they felt that AVHAT was a little too close to "asshat"?
On the other hand, since "avatar" is derived from Sanskrit and can mean "the incarnation of a Hindu deity, especially Vishnu, in human or animal form"... and since Vishnu is the "protector and preserver of worlds", perhaps AVATAR is meaningful symbolically rather than acronymically (is that a word?... didn't think so).
Of course, in
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cool! (Score:2, Insightful)
I said BASIC medical care. You can walk into almost any hospital in the USA and almost any clinic and get access to BASIC medical care.
The same can not be said of India.
And where in the USA is there a major problem getting clean running water?
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
While US hospitals can't refuse to treat you in an emergency due to inability to pay for their services, doing either of these things without insurance or money is going to leave you in debt for a long, long time.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Interesting)
Do yourself a favor, and visit India before you make hollow remarks based on some one-sided documentary made 50 years ago, or on the CNN documentary you saw.
I grew up in rural India. Guess what? Not only BASIC, but much more than BASIC medical care is available for FREE if you go to a Govt. run hospital.
My sister's a doc in India. It's a private practice, and if she feels that her patient can't afford it, she does't charge them. And most of the docs in India have the same attitude. Do you know what a Hippocratic Oath [pbs.org]is?. So if you are comparing the US medical amenities & cost to India, there is one huge component missing in the US... compassion. Don't compare apples to oranges.
From importing most of the grains in the past 30-40 years, India is now the world's largest foodgrains producer, the second largest fruit producer, the largest vegetable-producer, and the largest milk producer. India can not only feed its entire population, but it exports too. CNN didn't tell you that did it?
Another fact for the news deprived: India has NEVER had an expansionist ideology. Go read up some history. How about a few thousand years back from 2004? India has always been attacked before she responded in every single war since she was formed in 1947. Can you say I-R-A-Q? Who's a hippocrite?
Back to the topic... this is for the thought-handicapped:
If this project is successful, then India will be competing with Boeing and Airbus, never mind the military applications. How is that bad? Isn't that going to get more money into India? Was IT bad for India? The US refused to sell us a Supercomputer (one of the Cray machines) back in the 90s. Surprise, surprise! We built one that was faster and much cheaper than the Cray we were looking to buy for Weather Forecasting. Thanks a bunch US!
Then the US blocked the sale of some rocket parts from Russia. We built it from scratch. Thanks again US! We should be partners!! Oh wait, that pisses off Musharraf, the Chinese Commies, half the fucking Arab world... never mind, we can manage it on our own...
Would the US be self-reliant and the leader of the world if the politicians here threw up their hands and sat on their asses after all the US residents all had running water? You sound just like the geniuses who screamed "WASTE" when the US space program was launched.
Flaimbait? No, just an Indian who is fsking pissed that people can be so fsking unintelligent.
What about your coming gender imbalance. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)
Govt. run hospital.
Tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria are the main diseases that India has to grapple with across the length and breadth of the country. For many years the government has been focusing on family planning programs to control population growth. Primary health care schemes have been on the agenda also but the services and facilities are stretched. There is a big gap between facilities available in urban and rural areas. Some of the urban private institutions
Re:Cool! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Informative)
India is doing the right thing. They are raising themselves by their bootstraps and doing it well. By getting business to come there, they are providing jobs for their locals.
As to building a space plane, they have the right idea. We have also tryed it, but it was embroiled in politics and extreme greed.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Interesting)
India has substantial private wealth in the hands of its upper and upper-middle classes. English rule largely left the princely fortunes intact - there are still many families in India worth 10s and even 100s of millions of dollars. And below them families which have hidden stashes of gold and jewels they've been amassing for centuries. The 100 million best off people in India have wealth comparable to the 100 million best off Americans - even though there are also the 100s of millions of Indians living in such often-total poverty.
As more immigrants come into America to drive down the costs of servants and menial labor, we will come increasingly to resemble India - palaces for the rich and squalor for the rest. America is a young civilization yet, India an ancient and wise one. There is much to learn from them, especially regarding the institution of a caste system. Let us not be too proud, as they show us the way to our inevitable future.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:and we're sending *more* tech there.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not certain if I should put ":-(" or ":-)" on this one.
Re:and we're sending *more* tech there.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So.... So You're From Mars? (Score:2)
But seriously, since a scramjet will only work in an atmosphere this only makes getting to LOE (low Earth orbit) easier. Of course if it is cheaper, you can haul more rockets up, more quickly, with more fuel. Speed and Time of travel are always a trade off in space based on fuel, so the more you fuel can haul up to start your journey the faster it will be.
Re:No, not our cruise missiles too. (Score:5, Funny)
I guess they've taken our ability to write coherent English as well.
Re:Cold War in India heats up... (Score:2, Informative)