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Science

Successful Supersonic Jet Launch 256

Posted by Zonk from the that-was-quick dept.
Cave_Monster writes "Japan has hailed the test of a supersonic jet in South Australia's outback as a success. Unlike the attempt in 2002, this test saw the jet launch successfully from Woomera, South Australia." From the article: "Data gained through the test will be used in joint research by Japan and France towards a next-generation supersonic jet. No budget projections have yet been made for the entire project, which Japanese hope will produce a supersonic passenger jet capable of flying from Tokyo to New York in just under six hours - less than half the current time of a Concorde." We reported on the plan to do this, earlier.
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Successful Supersonic Jet Launch More

Successful Supersonic Jet Launch

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  • Sounds fun (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kickboy12 ( 913888 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:25PM (#13754074) Homepage
    I think it would be cool to travel Mach 2 on a commercial airliner. But chances are some new type of propultion will come along before this project finishes.

    • Re:Sounds fun (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 20th Century Boy ( 903797 )
      Sure it sounds fun but how much does it actually shorten travel time when you have to go through 2 hours of security and baggage check-in before boarding? Frankly I'd still see this generation of supersonic flight just as much of a status symbol (of course barring urgent business dealings and such) as it was for the Concorde, with all the same problems the Concorde faced limiting where and when it could break the sound barrier.

      • Re:Sounds fun (Score:5, Informative)

        by pomo monster ( 873962 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:18AM (#13754287)
        The people who would take a flight like this, at least initially, would be the kinds of people who could be given a special pass to speed through security and baggage check: business executives, financiers, wealthy celebs, politicians (excepting senior senators from Massachusetts [cbsnews.com]), and the like. In a world population of six and a half billion, there's only a few thousand of these people, maybe a couple tens of thousands at most, who would be using this flight as a speedier replacement for private or company jets. With this relatively miniscule customer base, it wouldn't be hard to prescreen them all.

        Hell, airlines already have the apparatus in place with existing programs [nytimes.com]: "When they make the cut, Global Services members are issued a black Global Services card, a leather-bound welcome kit and phone numbers of agents trained to see after their needs. Then the fun begins. The chosen ones are escorted through the security line and ushered into secret waiting lounges..."

        And besides, for some of these people, time is the most valuable asset they have. Shaving a few hours off a flight, even supposing they still have to endure the rubber gloved finger in the ass, is a priceless extra few hours they can spend with their families, their consorts, or whatever.

        • Insightful??? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10, 2005 @03:31AM (#13754873)
          The people who would take a flight like this, at least initially, would be the kinds of people who could be given a special pass to speed through security and baggage check: business executives, financiers, wealthy celebs, politicians (excepting senior senators from Massachusetts), and the like. In a world population of six and a half billion, there's only a few thousand of these people, maybe a couple tens of thousands at most, who would be using this flight as a speedier replacement for private or company jets.

          Who the hell modded parent insightful? Did you even read the article? Parent claims only "a couple tens of thousands at most" would use this, yet the article reports a 300 seat aircraft is aimed for. Figure minimum of ten aircraft built (ridiculously low number), that's 3000 seats. Tokyo to New York in six hours; figure one return flight of this distance per aircraft, per day (totally underutilising the aircraft). That's 6000 potential seats per day. Now figure these aircraft are flying 50% empty on every flight (yet again, totally underutilising the aircraft). That's 3000 passengers transported per day.

          Every one of these figures has been stacked ridiculously in the parents' favor, and yet still the net result is that with a total market of only "a couple of tens of thousands at most", you'd be relying on every one of your passengers to make just over one flight per week, every week of the year.

          With more realistic load figures (say 70%) and more realistic production numbers (figure 32 aircraft minimum, that being exactly twice as many as there were production Concordes built), you'd be carrying 13,440 pax per day - requiring each passenger to take one flight every 36 hours, year-round.

          Parent simply doesn't know what they're talking about. There are a LOT more than 20,000 people who would pay the money to fly this, particularly with Asian business expanding, and Asian businessmen wanting to travel to Europe and the US.

          • Available seats=? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Winkhorst ( 743546 )
            I fail to see what available seats have to do with whether anyone actually uses the service, though, hopefully, the more seats the cheaper the price. But still, even this doesn't guarantee anything. This is, after all, the age of web conferencing. What is the point anymore of someone traveling halfway around the world just to press the flesh? I hope these folks have done more extensive analyses of potential sales than the poster has. Personally, I see this as more of a boon to tourism than a business servic
        • Just make another security line devoted to them. They are going to be willing to pay more, probably a lot more, it's no problem to roll dedicated security in to the package. You don't get any harder or easier screening than anyone else, but it's a special section just for passengers on that flight and thus goes much faster.

          Or perhaps just better hardware. They have devices now that are essentially CT scanners for screening. They can you and your luggage rather quickly for all sorts of things, including non-
      • how much? if the travel would take, say 12 hours normally, and you could get there twice as fast, then you would save 6 hours. for some 6 hours of extra time on ground is something they're willing to pay for - a lot.

        besides they would probably offer some premium fast check in for this thing anyways.

      • Re:Sounds fun (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ghjm ( 8918 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @08:29AM (#13755715) Homepage
        Are you insane? It gets from NYC to Tokyo in 6 hours instead of 16. Add in your 2 hour security and baggage time and you've still saved 8 hours. Have you ever been on a super-long flight like this? I'd pay a hefty premium to avoid overnighting on the plane, particularly in coach class.

        And by the way: you would have to go through airport security either way. What were you going to do, drive to Tokyo?

        -Graham

    • Re:Sounds fun (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think it would be cool to travel Mach 2 on a commercial airliner.

      So do I. Incidentally, the concorde flew at mach 2 :)

  • Tokyo Express (Score:2, Informative)

    by Dagrush ( 723402 )
    This is the ultimate dupe...the "Tokyo Express" was conceived in the late 60s, IIRC. The US Gov't offered plane builders a million dollars per mach number in hopes of having a supersonic, near orbital plane get from New York to Tokyo in a few hours. It never got done.
    Or as Ben Rich, former head of the Skunk Works, said it wouldn't matter if it was a billion dollars per mach number.

  • Launch window (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zegebbers ( 751020 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:26PM (#13754082) Homepage
    In an earlier article [theage.com.au] they said that the launch window was until Oct 15. Does anybody know why this limitation exists? Was it due to access to Woomera?

    Other than that, hopefully this will continue complementing the work of Airbus.

  • Only six hours at Mach 2 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by craXORjack ( 726120 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:26PM (#13754083)
    I wonder how long it would take a hypersonic vehicle then, like an hour and a half?
    • After you wait another century for it to be built. The Blackbird pilots (~ Mach 3) wore a rather complex suit to stay alive, it got up to several hundred degrees (F) in the cockpit. The cooling system needed for a Mach 3 or (or 5!) passenger (businessmen in thin shirts) would be ridiculously large/heavy, if even possible.

    • Depends on how you do it (Score:5, Informative)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:29AM (#13754335) Homepage Journal
      A traditional design of aircraft is not very good at hypersonic speeds - the Blackbird was a naff design - so you're really going to have to go Blended Wing or Waverider. Waverider [aerospaceweb.org] is better for this type of design, as it simplifies supersonic and hypersonic airflows. Of those on the page I've linked to, the design they list as a long-range cruiser would seem to be the ideal shape for what is wanted here, and would scrape into the hypersonic category.


      At Mach 10, you're talking a shade over 1 hour, 10 minutes. This assumes that the Australians (the only ones with a working Scramjet) can build a commercial version. If you're having to rely on a conventional ramjet, efficiency drops dramatically above mach 6.


      The Americans abandoned the advanced passanger airliner project (which was blended-wing) in the late 90s, and there is no obvious indication that NASA has done much work on waveriders - some, mostly by being beaten to it by a bunch of Scots (and they were amateur rocket enthusiasts at that!) - but really not much. The US military seems to be much more interested in slow-moving ROVs and fully-automated robots, so don't look to them for producing anything worthwhile any time soon.


      The Australians have the Scramjet, but nothing to speak of to put it on. The joint efforts by the Russians and the ESA to produce an orbiter seem to be stymied by the religious belief in rockets for everything. What we need is either someone who can get these two groups together (a particle accelerator might overcome the repelling forces) OR a non-aligned group with sufficient financial and intellectual backing to reverse-engineer from existing work a combined solution.


      Last one to hypersonic mass transit is a chicken!

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Oh, what a rush! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:27PM (#13754084)
    "No budget projections have yet been made for the entire project, which Japanese hope will produce a supersonic passenger jet capable of flying from Tokyo to New York in just under six hours - less than half the current time of a Concorde."

    OK. So what's the rush? New York leaving?

  • The Concorde doesn't go that fast any more... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:27PM (#13754085)
    ... since they grounded the fleet.

  • Intercontinental US (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pwnage ( 856708 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:28PM (#13754089)
    I wonder how they're going to make that time with the current FAA restrictions that do not permit supersonic travel by passenger jets within the continental United States?

    • Re:Intercontinental US (Score:4, Funny)

      by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:34PM (#13754122)
      fly over Canada

    • Re:Intercontinental US (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zeoslap ( 190553 )
      The FAA restricts the noise not the speed of aircraft going over the US, so keep it quiet and you can go as fast as you want.

    • Re:Intercontinental US (Score:5, Informative)

      by OneArmedMan ( 606657 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:38PM (#13754142)
      Considering that NewYork and Tokyo are just about on opposite sides of the world, i would suggest that they do an "over the top shot" and go via the North Pole.

      By going that route, so long as the plane could pass the required regulations for minimum safe distance from a landing zone ( sorry i cant remember what its called ) , they would be able to do just about the entire flight with out coming anywhere near land at all.

      Take off and landing aside.

      • Re:Intercontinental US (Score:5, Funny)

        by iamlucky13 ( 795185 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:40PM (#13754153)
        Unless, of course, you consider Canada to be land.

        • Re:Intercontinental US (Score:3, Informative)

          by dubl-u ( 51156 ) *
          For those, like me, who had trouble visualizing the flight path, here's the great cirle route [kls2.com]. To my surprise, the most direct route is mainly over land.
        • Not Really ... :P

          But seriously they could easy go up through the Bearing Straight ( spl ) then hook round over the top, and pick a gap between Greenland and the North American main land.

          the shortest path by flying is a curve anyways and if you can do it all at high mach numbers the extra distance wouldnt be that much of a bother would it ? specially if you could still do it in half the time.
      • Definitely. A great circle route should go from tokyo to NY over northern canada. I'm sure there are some environmentalists who will complain, but there are way less people up there who will complain. By the time the plane is over the more populated parts of Quebec or even Newfoundland it would slow down to subsonic speed. Or fly out a bit farther over labrador and come into NY from the ocean, allowing supersonic speed to be maintained a while longer. I'll have to pull out my globe to get a better look

      • Re:Intercontinental US (Score:5, Insightful)

        by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:51PM (#13754187)

        I have no knowledge about these things, but my Slashdot Wild-Assed Guess is that what would suck about an "over the top shot" route for a passenger aircraft is the risks for the passengers. In any of a number of scenarios flying over open water or over inhabited land, a plane may need to (and be able to) set down hard in the middle of nowhere and still have a decent chance to save the majority of the passengers. Even if the pilot manages to make some kind of controlled descent into arctic waters (or onto arctic ice) and the passengers make it out of the plane on those rubber raft slides, they're stuck in a very unhospitable and very cold environment that will take rescue operations considerably longer to reach.
        • Sooo... flying from NY to say London and going over that "nice warm" North Atlantic Ocean is soooo much safer..

          look at the odd's , crunch the numbers.

          the USA has about 40K ppl die per year from car crashes, and about 25 - 30 K from assaultings ( shootings , stabbings etc )

          http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.htm l [the-eggman.com]

          ** snip **
          In the US, each year there are about 40,000 deaths per year in automobile
          accidents vs. about 200 in air transport. To put this in perspective, the
          chance of dying in an automobil

        • Sorry (Score:5, Informative)

          by NineNine ( 235196 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:16AM (#13754280)
          Actually, "over the top" flights are the standard procedure for the suggested New York to Tokyo and similar flights. Happens every day.
      • ETOPS, Extended Twin-engine Operation Performance Standard, is what you are trying to remember the name for. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS [wikipedia.org]

        It might be a unimportant factor if the "space plane" will be flying a boost-glide profile, in which after obtaining its initial trajectory, it glides at high Mach for most of the rest of the way.

        -----
        We don't need no stinkin' sig!

    • Re:Intercontinental US (Score:5, Informative)

      by doormat ( 63648 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:29AM (#13754338) Homepage Journal
      A typical flight from NRT (Tokyo/Narita) to JFK (John F Kenedy Airport, NYC) mapped here [kls2.com].

      As you can see, the great circle distance goes over the north pole. Even if you turn on ETOPS-120, most of the ride is north of the 48 contigious states. It does go over Alaska, but I think they would be able to maintain supersonic speeds until it starts to cross over populated areas of Canada (the last 10% of the flight).

    • Re:Intercontinental US (Score:2, Interesting)

      by wosmo ( 854535 ) *

      As I understand it (taken of course, with as much salt as slashdot requires), said supersonic laws were put in place as another step in the 'spat' between American and European aerospace markets. A lot of effort was put into projects on all sides in the 60s. The anglo-french Concorde got off the ground, as did the russian Tupolev Tu-144. The Boeing 733-197 ('2702') was prototyped, paid for mostly (75%) by government funding, and eventually killed by politicing over this spending. In 71, the senate cut f

    • The restriction was punishment for a working concorde (nixons admin passed it). Yeah, it was noisy, but not that bad. Interestingly, new tech is being worked on that may disapate the noise. If so, then it will be hard to argue against it. But even if not, that is not a big deal. This aircraft will really be a trans-alantic/pacific/polar aircraft.
  • capable of flying from Tokyo to New York in just under six hours - less than half the current time of a Concorde."
    Much less, I should think. [bbc.co.uk]

  • Better to work on Sub Orbital Hoppers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fgl ( 792403 ) <daniel@notforsale.co.nz> on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:30PM (#13754097) Homepage Journal
    Sub orbital hops [wikipedia.org] would be quicker & cooler

  • Not half the time to NY (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zeoslap ( 190553 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:32PM (#13754112) Homepage
    The linked article states the jet is designed to fly at mach 2 which is the same as Concorde (albeit with three times as many passengers) so how is it supposed to fly Tokyo > New York in half the time Concorde could do it if it goes the same speed?
  • Uhhh, the current journey time of the Concorde is approaching infinity. It won't be hard to beat that.

  • How quickly we forget (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stox ( 131684 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:48PM (#13754178) Homepage
    If my aging memory serves correct, one of the key issues that killed off America's SST project was potential damage to the Ozone layer. Has this problem been solved, or simply ignored?
    • If my aging memory serves correct, one of the key issues that killed off America's SST project was potential damage to the Ozone layer. Has this problem been solved, or simply ignored?

      I'm not certain which SST program you mean (SST just means supersonic transport, and includes the Concorde) ... perhaps one of the more aggressive ideas like the National Aerospace Plane [centennialofflight.gov] concept of the 1980's.

      People were worried about ozone damage, but unless it was really catastrophic an environmental concern like that would
      • I was referring to the original USA SST program that was announced by JFK on June 5th, 1963.

      • I believe the OP was referring to the Boeing SST [unrealaircraft.com] designed in the mid/late 60's. It was supposed to carry quite a few more passengers than the Concorde, and initially have variable geometry (swing) wings. The linked page indicates it was killed off by Congress for political reasons.

        Your comment that this "wasn't even doable on a military budget" made me originally think of the XB [fas.org]-70 [aerospaceweb.org], a still future-looking aircraft conceived in the 50's that was to fly its entire mission at Mach 3.

    • No, nixon's ppl killed it off due to budget issues. We had vietnam happening at them time, and Nixon was trying to balance the budget. Actually, come to think of it, he was the last republican to balance a budget.

  • Condorde? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jmv ( 93421 ) on Sunday October 09, 2005 @11:49PM (#13754181) Homepage
    ...flying from Tokyo to New York in just under six hours - less than half the current time of a Concorde.

    Something's wrong here. Flying from Tokyo to NY on a 747 takes about 12-13 hours. I expect a Concorde would do it in about 6 hours too.

  • lol, what? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Geeselegs ( 905363 )
    With peak oil looming, shouldn't they be researching alternative ways of powering air travel?
    • We have stalled in speed since the late 60's. This is actually needed. What would have been good, is had Boeing actually decided to build the BWB rather than the 787. An aircraft larger than the 380 (airbus's largest) would have used less fuel than a boeing 737 (a small boeing). It would also make for a good military bomber, transport (ability to hold 2-3 M1As depending on the model), and re-fueler (very wide wing span).

  • Did you know... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gibbo2 ( 58897 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:17AM (#13754282) Homepage
    That Woomera was named after an Aboriginal device to assist spear-throwing?

    Wikipedia link [wikipedia.org]

    I've always thought it's a very fitting name for the town since it's where most of Australia's missle and rocket launches are done from. Whether it is just co-incidence or not I don't know, but it's quite appropriate.

  • weee! (Score:3, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:17AM (#13754283) Homepage Journal
    ..im on A SUPERSOOOOOONIC PLANE right now....

    ...yyooouuu caaAAAANNN TEEELLLLLL Byyyyy theee.....

    ... dddooopppppleeRRR EFFECT ON mmmmyyy teeexxxxxttttt....

  • Airbus's momentum from their supersized 747 has had the wind knocked out of them with these two major crashes in only a few months span. Nobody dead, but major failures nonetheless, and that association's gonna stick for a while. Boeing's left themselves vulnerable to no longer being the top dog by resting on the 747. Japan has a clean nonexisting slate in aircraft manufacturing, whereas everyone else in the industry, airlines especially, have scarred rapsheets. If they can just get this thing to break the
    • Japan has a clean nonexisting slate in aircraft manufacturing, whereas everyone else in the industry, airlines especially, have scarred rapsheets

      1. I'd say that neither Boeing nor Airbus, nor any of the smaller players (Embraer or Bombardier-Canadair) has a "scarred rapsheet." On the contrary, they've built planes that have proven themselves in hundreds of thousands of hours of safe flight, all over the world, over the last several decades.

      2. Japanese subcontractors are building about 35% of Boeing's next p

    • I'm not a particular fan of Airbus, but let's be fair. They are starting to suffer from the same thing that has plagued Boeing - they have a lot of aircraft out there that are getting older in age. Two things that are hard to fight - numbers and time. I don't think it's surprising that we're going to see these issues crop up, especially when dealing with airlines that do not want to spend the time/money pre-empting these problems.

      If you're referring to the nose wheel issue [aerospaceweb.org] on the A320's, I believe there

    • Boeing's left themselves vulnerable to no longer being the top dog by resting on the 747.

      I dunno about that. Boeing was poised to build their "Sonic Cruiser," which would significantly increase the cruising speed of a commercial jet, bump it right up against the speed of sound. But they dropped that idea, and instead have bet their future on the 787/Dreamliner, which is a subsonic aircraft configured for short to mid-range flights, with only about 200-300 passengers.

      Thing is, the 787 is supposed to be muc
      • Actually, the 787's low costs is due primarily to use of composites vs. metal. Personlly, I think that Boeing should have focused on the BWB, but they too many passengers wanted a window. Had boeing gone after that, every cargo, and military would have wanted them, and then the low-cost passenger airliners would have gone with it. Later the big airlines would have had no choice. But, oh well.

        Airbus is likewise trying to get EU funding for the 350 (which is a 787 clone), but it is illegal per a deal tha

        • Re:Dunno, Boeing looks smart to me... (Score:4, Informative)

          by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @05:39AM (#13755168)

          Airbus is likewise trying to get EU funding for the 350 (which is a 787 clone), but it is illegal per a deal that clinton cut (basically allow Airbus one last gov. funded, but then no more). What is interesting is that Airbus is still getting subsidies even though they (and american gov.) say otherwise. Roughly, we acted tough for the last 5 years, but the EU gov. is still subsidizing it via low-key approachs. But you we are now proclaiming a victory (kind of like Sadaam proclaiming that he won against us).

          This is completely wrong. The US and the EU agreed in 1992 (the Trans Atlantic Aerospace Agreement) that launch aid was limited to 33% of hte projects cost, funded at Government borrowing rate + 1% and was capped relative to the manufacturers gross income at any one time. Airbus has simply been using LEGAL funding under that agreement (which was available to all manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic). Noone has claimed that Airbus hasnt received loans from the EU governments.

          On October 6th, 2004 the US withdrew from this agreement but it contains a 12 month termination clause, allowing the EU to offer funding for the A350 program. EADS, the main Airbus shareholder, has already said that it will forgoe launch aid on the A350 and fund it entirely inhouse.

  • Pity we can't do this... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by meburke ( 736645 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:34AM (#13754351)
    Well, after years of educating the world, giving away our technology to the Orient and producing lawyers (50% of the world's lawyers!) instead of scientists and engineers, we are no longer capable of leading the world in tech innovations. Get used to it: Japan and China will own the major technological innovations and discoveries 25 years from now. All you guys who slept through Physics and ended up with a Liberal Arts degree instead contributed to this situation. Whine if you want, but we are at war with Japan and China (economically) and most USA Citizens can't even understand the issues. It took us 10 years to get to the moon in the 60's, we are estimating 12-14 years to do it today, and I bet it takes longer than that. Japan will be mining the moon for essential minerals before we ever get there again. We don't have anyone in the US capable of develping an SST.

    Here's the other thing: If we did develop an SST before Japan, they would not let us land it in Japan. They would hold us up through safety inspections and paperwork, and finally, the only SST allowed to make trips to Tokyo would be the Japanese-sponsered version. If you think the US Patent process is obstructive to innovation and economic progress, you should compare it to Japan's patent system, which is ruinous to all but Japanese businesses.

    I would suggest reading, "The Asian Mind Game" by Chin-Ning Chu, but it would be more productive for folks to read a few science and engineering texts and get to work!
    • Didn't the 1980s do the Yellow Peril thing to death? Regardless, its hard to credit advice to take more science courses from someone who is spouting dime-novel scifi BS about mining the moon for essential minerals. What, pray tell, would ever justify the energy cost to move the equipment out there and the ore (or magic Moon Pixie dust, whatever) back? The rocks are the same up there as they are down here! Except down here you don't have to cart them a couple of million miles to their final destination!
      • Dismissing a potentially bad situation by tagging it with a cute name like "yellow peril" doesn't dismiss the reality. You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you. The Japanese, Chinese and Koreans work under a different set of moral and ethical rules from the US. If Chirstopher Warren had read the book, "The Asian Mind Game" he would have been less likely to give the game away. (This is not the only book to read on the subject, but it is highly accessible information.)

        As for the US being capable o
        • "Yellow Peril" isn't a cute name the GP post made up, it's a name widely given to the depiction of Asians as a alternate humanity that's taking over the world with an alien work ethic. Especially when done by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about, and just want to propogate racist fears without sounding overtly racist.

          Anyway good for the hard-working immigrants you're aware of! Hard-working immigrants have been a tired American cliche for a long time. Personally I think the Asian gan [shigabooks.com]

    • All you guys who slept through Physics and ended up with a Liberal Arts degree instead contributed to this situation.

      I can draw like a motherfucker [amongthechosen.com] and I got Ds and Fs in algebra regardless of effort. I'm an artist, not a fucking mathematician - and I'm no fucking slacker.

      Don't try to pin this on the students - they're not the ones glorifying touchdowns over long division.

    • All those lawyers are really needed! How else can someone make money from the work others did? Stop being so un-American and let others around the world do the work.

  • it SHOULD happen, but it won't (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheAxeMaster ( 762000 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:35AM (#13754352)
    Supersonic long range air travel SHOULD be the way we are heading, but everyone's so freaking scared of them now because of the concorde crash, which was only fault of that airplane in a miniscule way. Seriously, I don't get what people are so scared of. The thing flew for over 30 years with only one crash that wasn't really its fault (re: debris on the runway flattened a tire which ruptured a fuel tank). Hell, in that time, how many passenger jets have gone down? dozens. And people still fly on those.
     
    Engine tech is what made it so expensive. Above mach 1, turbojets get horridly inefficient and hard to maintain. What we need to do is progress to ramjet technology for the cruise, and turbojets for take off and landing. Rams will get you up to mach 5 if you want to push that far. And the whole thing could be hydrogen powered (required for higher machs and decent efficiency doing it). Mach 3 or 4 would be pretty ideal.

    • Re:it SHOULD happen, but it won't (Score:5, Informative)

      by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @12:59AM (#13754429)
      You know, if it was as easy as you make it sound, we would have done it by now. Not only are there problems with the technology (a large one being heating of the skin due to aerodynamic friction), but just by the nature of the physics, it'll always cost you several times more fuel to fly at high mach numbers than at low ones. You don't even need to be an aerodynamicist to understand it. Drag goes up with the square of velocity, you figure out what that does to fuel consumption. Existing turbofan engines are extremely efficient, yet airlines still can't turn a profit. You think the solution is to make airplanes that are even less efficient?
      • U.S. airlines can't turn a profit right now because driving 500 miles (in a country where almost every adult has a car) is substantially cheaper (especially with multiple passengers) and barely takes any longer than flying 500 miles, due to ridiculous security considerations, poor locations of airports, etc. and most people in the U.S. don't have much reason to travel further than that on a regular basis.

        If they can make travelling long distances more attractive (particluarly on trans-oceanic flights where
    • IIRC there's also a problem with heating. The SR-71 Blackbird (~Mach 3) for instance had the fuselage lined-up properly only when heated up by in-flight air friction (and as a consequence it leaked fuel on the runway, as the fuel sealing had a similar problem handling temperature variations) This could probably be fixed, but will require a cheap enough and easily maintainable thermal shield - unlike the shuttle's tiles. Not to mention that it will make for a hell of a hot plane upon landing, which for comme
    • Supersonic long range air travel SHOULD be the way we are heading, but everyone's so freaking scared of them now because of the concorde crash, which was only fault of that airplane in a miniscule way. Seriously, I don't get what people are so scared of. The thing flew for over 30 years with only one crash that wasn't really its fault (re: debris on the runway flattened a tire which ruptured a fuel tank). Hell, in that time, how many passenger jets have gone down? dozens. And people still fly on those.

      The

  • I got an idea for a way around this sonic boom problem. Create a super-duper bigass tunnel made with the best sound insulation money and indentured servitude can buy, make it long enough for the jet to be able to (with the help of high-tech japanese chip technology) accelerate across the sound barrier while in the tunnel, maybe have a really super quick door (make sure it's on the right end) that closes behind the jet after it enters the tunnel so you don't have any sound escaping from behind, then you hang

    • Re:The Great Tunnel (Score:3, Interesting)

      by l33td00d42 ( 873726 )
      >Create a super-duper bigass tunnel made with the best sound insulation money and indentured servitude can buy, make it long enough for the jet to be able to (with the help of high-tech japanese chip technology) accelerate across the sound barrier while in the tunnel

      No, that's a really stupid idea. A related and much better idea i have seen proposed would be a mag-lev train tunnel that's drawn to a vacuum. I think they were estimating speeds peaking at about mach 15 for underwater transcontinental trav

  • Why the hurry ? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Coeurderoy ( 717228 )
    Actually I would prefer to see a "really" cheaper way to travel, for instance I find it regretable that Dirigible are not more investigated.
    The Hindenburg crash killed them originally, but people do forget that the Dirigible was actually quite safe, and could probably be safer now (even hydrogen based dirigible) and they need much less infrastructure than planes.
    I believe that the state sponsored duopole (Boeing/Airbus) nature of aeroplane manufacturing is a strong factor stiffling innovation there.
  • As I explain here: http://ideasinprogress.blogspot.com/2005/06/japane sefrench-son-of-concorde-vs.html [blogspot.com] the next SST is likely to be a small biz jet from the U.S., Russia, and/or Canada. The Japanese are just putting out cool press releases for their basic research.
  • Going to Autralia, New Zealand, and East Asia (from US) may finally become acceptably comfortable.

  • Video of the launch (Score:2, Informative)

    by biraneto2 ( 910162 )
    in JAXA's home page you can find a video [www.jaxa.jp] of the launch and some more technical info.

  • What's the point of that? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Monday October 10, 2005 @04:03AM (#13754948) Homepage
    Remember, Tokyo and New York time zones are 14 hours apart.

    If you leave New York at noon, the trip would take six hours so the traveller would feel that it was 6pm, but local time would be 8am. You'd be ready to stop working for the day just when your counterparts are ready to get started. The same basic problem happens in the other direction.

    You either need some downtime upon arrival in order to adjust (in which case, why hurry up to wait?) or whoever travels will be at a disadvantage.

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