I'm surprised it uses a hydrocarbon fuel. I thought that scramjets pretty much had to use pure hydrogen to keep the flame front fast enough to maintain ignition.
DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
51–60 of 212 posts
Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is privileging technologies that have defence capabilities. There are likely countless ideas that could have similar success to DARPA projects if they had similar access to capital and state support. However, unless it can show off some military capability its funding can't be justified using the current model, leaving a gigantic subsections of technologies that could have similar innovative impact unders…
Without defense, the others cannot exist. Without defense, you cannot have a space within which you can securely do other work. So it cannot be a matter of competition but prioritization. Of course, we can criticize the massive amount of funding that goes to military contractors and the like (Eisenhower did). That's where the devil is: the military-industrial complex.
"Defense" is the worst euphemism for the military. I wish it was still called the Department of War, which is honest.
No one is saying abolish the military. In in fact we are saying some forms of state–military complexes might be good.
It's the idea the state-driven industry must be tied to defense and not anything else that's the problem.
Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> America is preventing Russia from antagonizing Europe? Er, Ukraine is in Europe. Out of 10, how would you rate the USA's efforts at stopping Russia there so far?
"Europe" is probably the wrong term here. The USA's efforts to stop Russia from antagonizing NATO members probably rates 8/10. Part of Russia is also in Europe.
>Part of Russia is also in Europe.
Care to explain?
Edit: sorry, my brain read Europe as EU.
Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
America is preventing Russia from antagonizing Europe, all the while we foot the bill for maintaining a capable military. China is a looming threat. If you don't see that, I don't know what I can say. Take away America's military and see what happens. Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Spratleys, 9-dash, water rights, Belt+Road indebtedness, Crimea, Ukraine... The US has to be strong out of necessity, and we get treated like…
The cat is out of the bag, Ukraine gave up 3d largest Nuclear arsenal on the promise that other nuclear powers mainly US would provide security. Everyone saw how that played out so a country would need to be suicidal not to start a nuclear program.
> Ukraine gave up 3d largest Nuclear arsenal on the promise that other nuclear powers mainly US would provide security
> mainly US
You missing historical order here. Ukraine gave up their arsenal long before they decided to drop Russia as an ally and play with Europe/USA (latter happens after "Maidan"). So at given time point (when Ukraine signs memorandum) they done it with _only_ Russia' protection in mind (as there was single country in past and they're both slavic)
Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#55"Goals of the mission were: vehicle integration and release sequence, safe separation from the launch aircraft, booster ignition and boost, booster separation and engine ignition, and cruise. All primary test objectives were met."
When the booster separation occurs, what happens to that booster? Does it self destruct on the way back down? Would any part of it be recoverable by inquisitive minds? Is booster tech so rudimentary that no secrets would be lost if recoverable?
"and cruise...met" does that mean it just essentially flew in a straight-ish line? seems like guidance would be important. walking before running?
Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Come on, nobody knows how the first governments were developed. No written records exist.
We know what government is per se, regardless of the motives of the earliest state governments. But here we miss an important point which is that government is natural to human societies. The mistake is to think that government is some artificial construct at odds with human nature. Tribes are governed. Families, the smallest society, are governed. What we call "government" is just a modification of the most basic fo…
I agree with the spirit, but I prefer to reject the natural/artificial distinction. Societal and biological evolution can be a very "arbitrary" processes. Sometimes something just happens, and is good enough, and sticks around. It's ultimately pretty subjective which things are "over-determined" and what wasn't (photosynthesis? agriculture? Something like eukaryotes from endo-symbiosis?), without being able to run a bunch of difficult experiments.
Government and money are two institutions who's origins are much debated, but I would be find replacing them with something else, "self-perpetuation" replaces "natural" for me.
I also so think this is dovetails with the best argument for reproducible bootstraps (as the follow up to reproducible builds). Without that, and like with our socials institutions, we have a a "historical bootstrap" we are constrained by. But by making an artificial bootstrap, we gain some freedom to tinker rather than being completely constrained by historical happenstance.
With software it is clear what this looks like. With something like governance and money it is less clear. Certainly it's hard to imagine the John Locke style arguments bootstrapping from "primitive man" working out, as children must be raised in a culture before they get the privileges of democracy, and are thus biased. But perhaps there are other more feasible ways.
Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#57DARPA has such a list of impressive, world wide useful technologies that wouldn't have been able to be created without funding from the government at the time given the time and money and at time, unlikeliness to be successful [0]. It really sucks that there's a 'D' for 'Defense' at the front of the acronym. Their website says they're "creating breakthrough technologies and capabilities for national security". Horrib…
There are also IARPA[1] and ARPA-E[2] (and few others as well). ARPA-E is more "peaceful" agency. [1] https://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs [2] https://arpa-e.energy.gov/
Have they produced any breakthroughs?
Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
History shows that conflict has actually been rather useful for our development
That's circular — it's important precisely because nothing else created the political will for that much state-run development. We should at least try to do non-military development, even if military dev will continue to have an edge.
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Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cat is out of the bag, Ukraine gave up 3d largest Nuclear arsenal on the promise that other nuclear powers mainly US would provide security. Everyone saw how that played out so a country would need to be suicidal not to start a nuclear program.
> Ukraine gave up 3d largest Nuclear arsenal on the promise that other nuclear powers mainly US would provide security > mainly US You missing historical order here. Ukraine gave up their arsenal long before they decided to drop Russia as an ally and play with Europe/USA (latter happens after "Maidan"). So at given time point (when Ukraine signs memorandum) they done it with _only_ Russia' protection in mind (as ther…
Please enlighten me on the order :) being a Ukrainian born in 70th
Re: DARPA's hypersonic scramjet achieves successful flight
#60I'm curious about the PR strategies at play when governments either saber-rattle or keep secrets. Announcing breakthrough, surprising even, HAWC tech seems to clue in opponents about what sorts of countermeasures they'd want to start developing. By contrast, the US has held the high-altitude Aurora/SR-72/whatever tech very close to the vest for decades, when it's pretty much obvious that a new generation of high alti…
Hypersonics aren’t new tech, they were tested and developed decades ago by the US. It’s only recently that they’ve made a reappearance. Why do you think it took only 2 years for multiple military branches to spin up and test multiple separate missile designs? I would argue that Russia/China are playing the PR game in order for the US to appear behind in terms of missile technology.