Aussie rocket scientists fly successful ScramJet test!

[Pneumatic]

Apparently this could lead to aircraft that may be able to fly 7 times the speed of sound ... Which means a flight from Sydney to London will take 2 hours!!!! See a report here.

[Sasq]

Yay, one for the Aussie's

[Agent31]

hee hee, aren't we good?

the most amazing thing about their project was the components they used to make it happen!!! I was watching a reporter interviewing one of the scientists and he was showing them all the components and there were numerous things you probably have in your garage!!! OK, so the space standard metals aren't so common, but it's still impressive

I LOVE this stuff, it's so cool seeing what scientists are up to, http://www.newscientist.com/news/ is my fave site ever

[Marshmallowman]

There was a (atempted)launch a month ago, it was not so good, got 50Metres in the air and then started spinnig out of control and hit the ground, luckily the scram part fell of at lauch pad and wasn't damaged...after seeing that I rememebred a lot of comments about wether they would hget working at all.

a month later and they pulled off.

its a Japanese/Australian collaboration

[Dr Mordrid]

NASA had a similar problem with their scramjet test a few months ago. The engine never got a chance to run when its booster went off course and had to be destroyed.

Scramjets and the linear aerospike have big futures once their development issues are addressed.

Ion drive for interplanetary missions is also a technology that is coming on hard, especially if used in conjunction with modern reactors;

http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_inspi.htm

Please note the references to electrostatically confined fusion reactors. Filo T. Farnsworth, the US developer of television, pioneered this approach (he called it the Fusor) in the 1960's but inertia kept it out of mainstream science until recently. Many private basement experimenters have found they could produce a significant neutron flux with a Fusor powered by simple wall current

Also interesting is NASA/JPL's SAFE nuclear engine project;

http://std.msfc.nasa.gov/ast/presentations/7b_vandy.pdf

Dr. Mordrid

[Jammrock]

Is it b33r powered?

Jammrock

[Dr Mordrid]

No...that was M.J. Fox's DeLorean in BTTF

Dr. Mordrid

[az]

About the only sports car I'd want to own

AZ

[RichL]

Originally posted by Jammrock
Is it b33r powered?

Jammrock

No, but the first test did fail because one of the corks got sucked off a scientist's hat and into the engine as it launched.