DARPA Set To Blast Falcon Mach 20 Test Flight 201
coondoggie writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is taking to the sky again, this time to run what it says will be the second and final test of its hypersonic Falcon aircraft, which is capable of hitting speeds up to Mach 20, or about 13,000MPH. The Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 is scheduled to launch Wednesday between 7:00am — 1:00 pm PDT from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., aboard an Air Force Minotaur IV rocket. The rocket delivers the Falcon to a starting point high in the atmosphere, where its engine ignite, and, if all goes well, it will blast through the air for about a half hour, DARPA says."
13,000mph? (Score:3)
wow. half-again and you're in orbit.
where do you need to go that fast?
"When the bomb absolutely has to be anywhere in the world in 30 minutes or less, DARPA is there!"
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where do you need to go that fast?
Well, if you need to shoot down a satellite, I suppose launching a missile from something that's already going at 13000mph is easier than launching it from the ground. The only other use I can think of would be as an in-between stage for developing an actual orbit-capable airplane. The need to launch the plane with a rocket kinda negates the benefit of that, but this would be more of a concept testing for the engine, with "making it practical to use" left as work for other people.
Aircraft Carries Obsoleted. (Score:3)
About the time China gets her aircraft carriers built, debugged and they learn how to operate from them and what the hell to do with them, we might have drones that can deliver ordinance anywhere in the world in just a few hours.
The need for a carrier group to project power may well go by the wayside.
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About the time China gets her aircraft carriers built, debugged and they learn how to operate from them and what the hell to do with them, we might have drones that can deliver ordinance anywhere in the world in just a few hours.
The need for a carrier group to project power may well go by the wayside.
Cost per pound of ordnance delivered might still be won by the carrier.
Also you can spool up the assembly lines for ordnance faster than spooling up the lines for more space planes; although carrier assembly lines are even slower...
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Wait...are you talking cost effectiveness with regards to the military?
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But of course yes!
Maybe you didn't notice but cost effectiveness is the difference between winning wars and losing them.
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I doubt it..a hypersonic cruise missile that costs a few million taking out a carrier that costs a lot more than that with planes that cost a few million each and trained crewmen that aren't that cheap either... Also you have to factor in the damage that ship would have done had it been left alone..
What jet fighter costs a few million each? I agree with your point that the missile is more cost effective, but you're being too conservative with respect to the cost of the Carrier and it's total cost per deployment.
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Projection of power is about what can be seen - not knowing something merely exists.
When a carrier groups parks outside your window, the thought isn't, "So that's what a carrier group looks like." Rather, the message is, "This is a nice reminder to pull your head from ass else we'll do it for you." Or perhaps, "You have our full support. We're here to help." Regardless, physical presence is almost everything in that projection of power.
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The nuclear arsenal would seem to belie this theory.
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The nuclear arsenal would seem to belie this theory.
And exactly how many times have carrier groups been nuked compared to the number of times they have been sent out for force projection?
Ultimate Doom is not always the appropriate tactical response....
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I believe he/she meant that nuclear missiles can also project power in a matter of hours and that hasn't seemed to impress people.
Pretty good point but of course it's the difference between threatening someone on your lawn with a Maverick missile as opposed to a paintball gun. They will more inclined to believe that you will leave them with painful welts rather than obliterate them with the Maverick.
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The USSR managed to project force plenty well without having the best Naval air power around.
There's more than one way to skin a tiger.
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I don't know if that's a cheeky response or not, but assuming you have any clue about the topic, its seemingly impossible to not read that as a statement of full agreement.
If not, please explain.
Re:Aircraft Carries Obsoleted. (Score:4, Interesting)
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But you realize, of course, that ICBMs are easily detectable in the boost phase. There are satellites from many countries with hardware and software to detect them. What if you could launch something that had the same capacity and accuracy as an ICBM without the big boost phase? Maybe you have one of these that flies relatively low and really fucking fast..then it can convert into a cruise missile for the last little bit of its lifespan and blow the hell out of someone's city.
Imagine if it were stealthy
Re:Aircraft Carries Obsoleted. (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't need to fly low. It can basically cross half the globe in a little over an hour. Even with a long-lead tracking system, your air defense with its range of perhaps 200km has a span of about 55 seconds in which to intercept it, which in the scheme of things makes it very difficult. It's not going to be maneuverable, but you have to have both timing to intercept and timing to explode before the inbound arrives so that you catch it in the blast. Alternately, you can try a direct intercept, but that's even more difficult.
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True dat.
Re:Aircraft Carries Obsoleted. (Score:5, Insightful)
At 13,000 mph the delivery time is about half an hour. Figure the furthest spot on the planet is 12,000 miles from launch site and that means less than an hour ro anywhere on the planet. Can you say DAMN FAST!!!
As for delivering ordinance, you would coordinate a fast delivery vehicle with local eyes in the air and possibly eyes on the ground. Drop a couple multi-warhead smart bombs and you pretty much have obsoleted any other kind of bomber. Add fly by wire plus autonomous smart electronics, and predator drones, and you pretty much don't have to change out of your jammies to blast the snot out of somebody half a world away.
On the more productive side, this technology would lend itself to eventually creating aircraft capable of LEO space flight, and ultra high speed global travel. The idea of getting anyplace on earth in less time than it takes to get through the security line is kind of shocking. Anyone for high tea in Johannesburg?
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Carriers and their aircraft can linger.
Until it's sunk by a hypersonic missile or a submarine, anyway.
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Well, if you need to shoot down a satellite, I suppose launching a missile from something that's already going at 13000mph is easier than launching it from the ground.
You wouldn't really need a missile, you could just pick a trajectory which would intersect the satellite, let go of something, and change trajectory. At 13000mph you can actually get quite high on a parabolic orbit.
Re:13,000mph? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well, if you need to shoot down a satellite, I suppose launching a missile from something that's already going at 13000mph is easier than launching it from the ground.
Why not just put a rocket on top of the something that's travelling 13,000 mph? Keeps the costs down.
but this would be more of a concept testing for the engine, with "making it practical to use" left as work for other people.
This is probably what it is for. Someone probably already has a practical use for it, but doesn't want to reveal what that practical use would be. They just need the engine. DARPA likes to do this, where they say, "Hey design some random crazy piece of equipment that you couldn't ever fathom using. The piece of equipment must be fully functional, and we don't plan on telling you what it is for in the en
Carriers vs missiles (Score:3)
I think missiles will win. The US, in its own self-interest, should sell its entire Navy to the Chinese, retire a few $T in national debt.
By the time they learned to use it effectively, it would be obsolete.
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Re:13,000mph? (Score:5, Funny)
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I assume you're joking ... because, the speed of sound in a vacuum is precisely zero.
Mach [wikipedia.org] is defined relative to the medium you're in based on the current conditions of that medium.
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You didn't.
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THAT'S THE JOKE. </Wolfcastle>
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Mach 1 is the speed of sound. Now, I'm at loss to decide what that is in vacuum...
It is relevant to flight in an atmosphere, because it predicts the formation of a shockwave at the surfaces of the aircraft which pass that value -- and this has consequences in terms of structural loading.
It stays relevant after because as the aircraft further accelerates, the angle of the shockwave reduces until it touches the craft. At this point, the shockwave becomes unstable, and a new one is formed _detached_ from the a
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Mach 1 is normally measured as at sea level, because it is based on the average temperature of air molecules at that same level. When you go high enough, temperature gets significant, as the hotter molecules tend to rise to the top. Speed of sound generally increases with altitude. Pitot tubes and such work with what air they have to measure Mach, and at least until modern computing, that raw data is ALL they gave a pilot, so what they report is normally 'distorted' by both local temperature and by wind-spe
Re:13,000mph? (Score:4, Interesting)
Speed of sound generally increases with altitude.
It generally decreases. That is why airliners fly under autopilot in what is known as the coffin corner. It's the corner of the space where they are flying only just below the speed needed to maintain lift and flying only just below the transonic regime where they become unstable.
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Mach is related to air density since it is based on the speed of sound which is affected by air density.
However, I figured a mach-equivalency would have been set up to relate mach to a standard velocity rather than something that is affected by local conditions.
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Yes, I know. Thus the question: why do people talk about the space shuttle orbiting the Earth at Mach 25 and no one tells them they are idiots (because they are)?
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"To determine the speed of sound, you need to know gas properties and temperature."
No, you don't. What you really need are good ears and a chronometer.
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But for commercial use, if you can get materials that can withstand mach 20 I'm sure someone will be able to create a commercial airline that can economically go mach 3 or 4.
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I'd imagine the technology would be transfered to missles.. at that speed do you even need explosives?
Depends on the target. For slow moving objects like people, tanks, buildings, and so on, no explosives needed. For objects like planes, probably so unless they can score a hit with > 90% confidence or so; which is a pretty tall order for something moving that fast. Though maybe not. If the target doesn't know its coming and/or even if it does, how fast can the target evade when a missile is headed your way at mach 20+.
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where do you need to go that fast?
How about orbit? Release your payload at the peak of a maximum speed parabola with a relatively tiny rocket motor attached and you can put small satellites into any orbit you want with very little warning. I suspect there are several groups inside and out of the intelligence agencies who would be very interested in getting an orbital view of a situation with just a few hours lead in time.
Or how about just dropping guided tungsten rods as a precision munition. At 13000MPH you wouldn't even need an explosi
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Surveillance.
The SR-71 and its kin where great during the Cold War simply b/c they could be nearly any where in the world with little time and highly unplanned - meaning, the Soviets couldn't strategically cover their nukes to keep the SR-71 from seeing them - not enough time between knowing when the plane took off, where it was going, and when it got there to do anything about it. This is just the next step in that evolution - and you cut down the time dramatically...
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The SR-71 never conducted even a single overflight of the USSR, as overflights were banned after the U-2 shoot down. The Blackbird was relegated to China, North Korea and other theaters, but it never conducted a mission in Soviet airspace.
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According to Wikipedia [wikimedia.org], LEO is actually ~7-8 km/s. This goes 13. So, this thing IS at orbital speeds.
Problem is likely height, since the engines likely require air. And, of course, it's starting at high altitude already using a rocket. Most theoretical ground-orbit planes use multiple engines, since many high-speed engines require you to be supersonic already. Still, this tech could potentially give us much cheaper ground-to-orbit methods.
Also, as to where (besides orbit, and since this is DARPA): it's pr
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You work at NASA?
No, but I want to :)
For some reason I assumed the 13,000 was m/s. It's actually ~3.6 miles/sec, or ~5.76 km/s. So, pretty close anyways.
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The more obvious question is: why not go somewhere that fast?
Have you ever been in a car at over 200mph? I have (I was the passenger not the driver) and it's an absolute blast; you're traveling a football field's length per second at that speed and it's amazing. I've driven a measly 185mph several times and even that is fantastic even out west where all you see is cornfields and sand and rocks, and mountains in the distance. It's a damned shame we don't have an autobahn-lik
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We do. There are really only three differences: The roadbed is built to last a little longer, the road surface is generally built and repaired smoother, and driver skill is generally better. And contrary to popular belief, there are speed limits on much of the German autobahn.
Now when it comes to flying, if you could travel across the country at 13,000 mph, you could be on the opposite coast in 10 minutes (or from New York to London in 16
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And don't forget the ticket price of around $8,000 for a seat on the Concord. Imagine how much seats would cost on a Mach 20 jet liner.
Might not be relevant to the problem space. Current economic goal is to destroy the middle classes at all costs. The lower classes won't care, because they'll never fly on an airplane anyway, subsonic, hypersonic, whatever. The only other social group left, will be the super rich who don't care about costs. The key is, can you build, maintain, and fill a hypersonic jetliner with passengers under those social / economic conditions? Probably not. In current similar 3rd world areas they're lucky if the s
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It was $8.000 then but as efficiency improves and economies of scale work the price will come way down.
Re:13,000mph? (Score:4, Funny)
Because they want to fly low over a city, blow the hell out of everyone's eardrums and windows, and prove once-and-for-all that the Flash would make a really shitty superhero in real life.
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wow. half-again and you're in orbit.
where do you need to go that fast?
"When the bomb absolutely has to be anywhere in the world in 30 minutes or less, DARPA is there!"
Where do you need to go that fast? Why do you need microwaves? Why do you need a protocol that allows people to send data over an unreliable network? Why do we need all of this?
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Why do you need microwaves?
I actually bake most of my food in the oven... but you need microwaves because stoufers macaroni and cheese just tastes better when nuked, I can't explain why. Also because you need the radiation to kill most of the more virulent ingredients in hot pockets before you injest them.
Why do you need a protocol that allows people to send data over an unreliable network?
to play world of warcraft, and download porn. sheesh, when was the last time that you saw two strangers (both good looking) having live anal sex in front of you? I can't attest for your life, but it doesn't happen in mine very often
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Best answer so far.
Bandwith (Score:2)
Never underestimate the bandwith of 1.000 Blu-ray disks on a Falcon.
"aircraft"? (Score:2)
what's the turning radius? you go around the earth twice before you hit 90 degrees? and after 30 seconds you need to land to get more fuel?
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pilot 2: "we're over new zealand"
-sun rises-
pilot 1: "bearing S51E, to get us over afghanistan"
pilot 2: "but sir, we're over argentina"
pilot 1: "don't worry, you'll see"
-sun sets-
pilot 2: "roger, now over madagascar" ;-)
Long walk (Score:3)
Orbit (Score:2)
I am not a rocket scientist. i don't play one on TV either. But it seems like there are two separate problems with interplanetary travel. First, you must get to orbit from Earth, then you must get from orbit into a trajectory to get you where you want to go. It seems like our solution has been to create a vehicle to get you from Earth to wherever it is you are going... treating it as one problem.
I see something like this and wonder if this is the future of getting to orbit. Mach 20 is about half of escape v
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Actually, the "big dumb rocket" mentality exists for a very good reason. While it is certainly (theoretically) possible to build multiple stage launchers, such as strapping a smaller rocket onto a jet plane, the jet then has to be built to take it's own weight+the rocket. I'm not sure if you can build (conventional) jet planes big enough to carry a rocket large enough to reach escape velocity even after being released at high altitudes and speed. Jets only work up to a certain altitude and speed, problems r
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Solid fuel rockets are a bit of a mess. There are a lot of things which can go wrong, and failure tends to be catastrophic. Liquid fuelled rockets are much easier to deal with because you can just turn them off in an emergency. You have to be really really unlucky to get an explosion, especially if you pick a relatively easily handled oxidizer like liquid oxygen.
All you are saving with a ramjet is carrying the oxidizer, with all the downsides you mention.
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All you are saving with a ramjet is carrying the oxidizer, with all the downsides you mention.
But isn't that like... most of the mass of that dumb rocket on the launchpad? If you could ditch the oxidizer, you could carry a lot more cargo.
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The basic concepts of rocket science are fairly simple. Cold gas and low efficiency rockets are even simple in practice, but that is where it ends. There is a great deal of design that goes into solid rockets. You don't just run from one end of the cylinder to the other. The outer casing can't handle the pressure and temperature. You have to burn from the inside out to allow the propellent itself act as an insulator. If you just have a single hole through the center, you will have low thrust at the be
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We've been doing [orbital.com] it for more than 20 years, and could launch much bigger rockets with a purpose-built carrier.
But jets use atmospheric oxygen as an oxidizer, so they're much more efficient. That's the whole reason we're spending money on scramje
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Space plane (Score:2)
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Or at least a shuttle replacement. Going back to landing in the ocean just seems so primitive.
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Primitive means cheap and reliable. And you want to armor as little as your craft as possible against re-entry.
A hyper-sonic aircraft as a non-disposable first stage is interesting, however, precisely because it doesn't have to be armored against re-entry. It's not clear that it would ever be cheaper or safer than a big dumb rocket, but at least it's arguable.
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A hyper-sonic aircraft as a non-disposable first stage is interesting, however, precisely because it doesn't have to be armored against re-entry.
At Mach 20, your entire flight is 're-entry'.
But more than that, given the MD-21's lousy record of separating drones at merely supersonic speed I'm far from convinced that a hypersonic aircraft carrying a rocket on its back will work very well.
Why DARPA and not NASA? (Score:2)
Are their any write-ups on the propulsion and heat resistant materials?
Re:Why DARPA and not NASA? (Score:4, Informative)
DARPA has money. NASA does not.
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The military may be the only branch of our government that can successfully do any long-term planning any more.
Friday? (Score:2)
When do the semi-ballistics start running?
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When do the semi-ballistics start running?
Do mean things that are getting on towards ballistic, or ballistic things that carry tons of cargo?
Who needs NASA? (Score:3)
Between DARPA and Space-X, we may get space travel back.
One of the better ideas in spacecraft was the Boeing/USAF X-20 Dyna-Soar. [wikipedia.org], from 1957 to 1963. This was a small aerodynamic craft to be launched atop a booster and land on a runway like an airplane. It was the next step after the successful X-15. The project was cancelled in favor of the Gemini spacecraft. This DARPA project is a lot like the old Dyna-Soar.
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This DARPA project is a lot like the old Dyna-Soar
One might even call it... Dyna-Soar Jr. [youtube.com]
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X-33 was the inheritor of those ideas. Canceled by congress in 1996. Yes - there were serious technical issues - but the concept, as a whole, was nowhere nearly as flawed as STS. It was quite elegant. I do not understand why there was no discussion of continuing this research when STS was canceled. Oh - yes I do: There could be no pork for a certain congressional district in Utah, if we used a sensible design.
Not an Aircraft - more like a MARV (Score:4, Informative)
It's an unpowered lifting body, no engines, so it basically glides (at a very high speed!) and is capable of surviving re-entry.
It looks like it's a weapons delivery system capable of avoiding terminal ballistic missile defenses. A MARV (MAneuverable Reentry Vehicle).
I thought we (the U.S.) were the only ones with a (semi)-robust missile defense system (well I guess the Isrealis also). I guess DARPA's just planning ahead for the day when the Chinese decide to redress the strategic balance by spending their Trillions on a good BMD. Also I'm thinking it must be so expensive that the only kind of warhead that's worth placing on board is nuclear. But then again maybe there are VERY specific soft targets which you absolutely positively have to kill in an hour (because that's all you know they'll be in that location for). Then a "conventional" warhead could do (or at 13,000MPH just a bunch of tungsten rods "Rods from God" would do. Think of it as an intercontinental sniper rifle with bullets that can swerve around defenses. Good for "decapitating" an enemy, (I guess a lot of threats we face would go away if we could take out just the top few people/person: are you listening Kim Jong-Il? Qaddafi? S&P ratings board?).
I was kinda hoping DARPA was working on a (much) faster version of the Wave-rider hypersonic aircraft. Oh well, guess even they can't beat the laws of physics (and our lack of a good propulsion system).
Even "cooler" would be a laser that could be quickly lofted into space and would zap a target on the earth below. Unfortunately, "Real Genius" notwithstanding we don't have any lasers compact enough to be launched in anything short of a Saturn V (I don't think Dr. Teller's nuke pumped X-Ray laser was ever shown to work). That pesky outer space treaty prohibits us from placing weapons in space so we can't just have laser satellites floating around picking off people we don't like I guess.
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[A]n Air Force Minotaur IV rocket which delivers the Falcon to a starting point high in the atmosphere where its engine ignites and if all goes well it will blast through the air for about a half hour, DARPA says.
Did you notice the thing about how it does have an engine? This is not a balistics test. It's a test of what I assume is a fairly mature version of the scamjet, though I wish TFA would have used that word if it indeed is a scramjet engine. But unambiguously, it's some kind of engine that's presumably not a rocket.
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It's a test of what I assume is a fairly mature version of the scamjet...
woah is Bernie Madoff working for DARPA now?
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That sounds a lot like a scramjet. It needs something to launch it fast, but once it gets going it flies itself. wikipedia on scramjet only shows it going up to Mach 10 but I imagine it goes farther.
Flight of the Navigator? (Score:3, Interesting)
Flight of the Navigator spaceship [zfx.com]
Darpa Falcon [darpa.mil]
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Radius of earth = ~3959 mi
13,000 mph / 3,959 mi = a little over 3 times around earth per hour
In metric: about 20,900 kmh / 6,378 km
Half hour in the air = a little over 1.5 times around earth. Nice! I wonder what the speed up / slow down times are to hit Mach 20.
I think you want to use the circumference of the earth and not radius. Still pretty fast though.
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Or you've been math trolled. Imagine how many math Nazis there are here compared to grammar Nazis. This is a whole new level of trolling.
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Here are some hints:
The kilometer was originally 1/40000 of the Earth's circumference, so 40k km is always a handy estimate.
The nautical mile was originally one minute of arc at the equator (or one minute of latitude - either way), so the Earth circumference is 21600 nautical miles. This is also handy - an airplane moving 600 knots is covering 10 degrees per hour. 12000 knots is 200 degrees per hour.
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The radius of the earth isn't a good thing to use, well, unless this thing is going to tunnel through the earth from one side to the other via the core at mach 20. You want the circumference, which is 2 * pi * r, in other words, a distance well over 6 times further than you thought...
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If you paid $5000 in federal taxes then you're not budgeting very well if you can't afford food.
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The kind developed by DARPA??