NASA, USAF in $30m hypersonic boffinry push The US air force and NASA have launched a joint research push to advance hypersonic flight technology. The air force research lab and space agency are seeking university and industry partners, and are offering $30m in funding. Hypersonic for this purpose is defined as five times the speed of sound or faster. Thus far, very few …
Firstly the serious one - $30 million? Isn't that pocket change to these establishments? Given that, as intimated in the article, the issues to be overcome will require significant research and advances in multiple areas including materials technology and chemistry, $30 mill really seems like a let's throw a few coppers out there and see what comes back kind of plan. Good luck with that.
Second - 'slap the pendulous jowls of established wisdom with the gauntlet of disregard' - I love, I'm going to use it.
Is generally accepted as being approximately 762 mph at sea level (I know... it's a measurement though, I doubt anyone's done that, or survived if they did) at STP.
Better expressed as a Mach number - for example, the transitional value for the Hypersonic transition is < Mach 5
What's the difference? Well, Mach numbers are effectively dimensonles numbers. Which can clarify the math somewhat.
A SHEEP!
Actually, its been a while since the RSU (Reg System of Units) had an airing.
and, @ AC - Wasn't there a land speed record attempt fairly recently that busted the sound barrier? At STP? And the driver survived?
If that doesn't slap the pendulous jowls of established wisdom with the gauntlet of disregard, I dunno what does
Why they seem to keep ignoring these guys is beyond me. Maybe its the fact it wasn't made in the US, didn't cost enough, or that they're trying to use off the shelf componentry. Anyway, they still beat NASA to a working scramjet.
http://www.uq.edu.au/hypersonics/?page=19501
http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/hyshot/default.htm
The copious amount of money they spend on these things, could be spent getting research done into what has not been done before.
Principle: research, develop, prove, patent, adopt for whatever project and license. Prove the basic grounds and elements one at a time for the project and use and work up until you have enough for the actually project. Think small, think simple, practical steps. Be innovative and work out the practical (is that allowed).
And don't try to spend copious amounts of money trying to prove there used to be bacterial life on mars, find something more useful, like drive research that will allow you to do much more research much cheaper for even similar amounts of money that you would have spent trying to do it with present technologies into the distant future.
Wayne Morellini.
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