Tuesday, August 28, 2001

Scramjet Tested Successfully

The Sacramento Bee is running this story about the first powered device to achieve "hypersonic" speeds in the Earths atmosphere. In a series of DARPA-sponsored tests, at Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee, a scramjet engine, encased in a titanium projectile, was fired from a 130-foot cannon, at an initial velocity of Mach 7.1. The scramjets engines then ignited, and the object moved another 260 feet, in just 30 milliseconds, before it came to rest in a series of steel plates designed to halt the flight. Peak acceleration: about 10,000 Gs. Elapsed time, including cigarettes & pillowtalk: less than a second.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/28/1551229

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