Whoa! Slow that Scramjet!

Finally, some good news is making the headlines. JPL says the X-43A is A-OK. For the acronym impaired that means that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s hypersonic combustion ramjet successfully completed its mission. Like I know what THAT means. For us analog types here’s the translation: an unmanned very high-tech plane flew at a record breaking 5000 miles per hour. Your standard 747 lumbers across the country at about 1/10th that speed, giving you plenty of time to see J-Lo’s next bad movie.

I’m told 5000 MPH is an astonishing Mach 7. By the way, Mach is named for Ernest Mach who figured out some ratio between the velocity of gas and the speed of the sound of the gas. (Did he do his tests at a beer and beans frat house party?) Dr. Mach also didn’t believe that time or space was absolute. He believed it changes depending on how we see it. Tell that to the Meter Maid next time you run out of quarters. Mach 7 officially means seven times the speed of sound. Here’s how I figure it: 7 times the speed of sound means that if my mother yells at me 3000 miles away by phone now, I would have heard it 7 seconds ago. Coincidentally that is what psychically happens whenever I do whatever it is that I know Mom thinks I’m not supposed to be doing 7 seconds earlier anyway.

The X-43A, AKA “scramjet” flew for 11 seconds until its planned plunged into the Pacific. It only had enough fuel to sustain it for 11 seconds. To put that amount of time in perspective -- Janet Jackson could now show 2 nipple rings and engineers would have time to digitize them both.

The way the scramjet worked is this: Because the 2800-pound X- 43A needs a jump-start at Mach 5, it’s coupled to a rocket booster. That dynamic duo is attached to a B-52 bomber and carried up to its cruising altitude of 40,000 feet (where it’s safe to move about the cabin). The X-43A and the rocket drop from the bomber. The rocket booster kicks in until reaching Mach 5. With X-43A all revved up it zips away for 11 seconds before crashing into the ocean. Translation for us analog types: I strap my Corolla to a Maserati that gets onto the I-5 North in the dead of night. The driver floors it, shoves my Corolla off the roof rack as my compact car sails away at 120 MPH before plunging into the Los Angeles River. Honestly, officer that’s just what happened.

JPL is calling this a great day and they’re comparing it to a century ago when Orville and Wilbur Wright managed to go 120 feet in 11 seconds. The X-43A covered 15 miles. But the Wright Brothers got to salvage their plane. Eventually JPL hopes that scramjet technology will revolutionize flight. It’ll make the Concorde jet-setters look like an Iowa family taking a mini-van vacation. It’ll be around the world in 80 minutes. Although, it’ll still take two hours to get through security at the airport.

Sure, fast travel sounds like a great idea, but there are drawbacks. Instead of in-flight movies we’ll have in-flight flash cards. There will be no time for those delicious airline meals. Instead flight attendants will be hurling peanuts and beverages to make sure everyone is served. And then there is this to consider for adults like me who purposely live several time zones from their parents. Airplanes act as decompression chambers. After even the briefest of trips I find I’ve regressed from my current age of 43 back down to a sullen and belligerent 17-year-old. I need all the flight time I can get to do some time traveling back to my appropriate age. Perhaps NASA will consider making a home version of the Mars Rovers. Those travel at 1/10th of a mile per hour. Now, that’s just my speed.

www.nasa.gov
www.marxists.org/glossary/people/m/a.htm

by Stephanie Becker