With "High Times," the Economist delivers a very long and extremely well-documented article about the future of aviation during the next fifty years.
It tells us about pilotless planes, with 32 countries currently developing more than 250 models of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), primarily for combat purposes.
Those of you who want to know more about UAVs used for defense might read this report, "Aerial Vehicles Roadmap, 2002-2027", published in October 2002 by the US Department of Defense (PDF format, 8,487 KB, 209 pages).
The article also looks at future civilian pilotless planes and at the future of personal aviation, giving us a warning.
Even if it is, one day, possible to design a cheap personal craft that will land in the back garden between the washing line and the goldfish pond, huge social and environmental changes would be required to make it acceptable. Not many people will welcome the prospect of thousands of vehicles flying constantly overhead.
Whatever the fate of personal aviation, it seems highly likely that many more people will be flying in the next 100 years as countries become richer. This could have a devastating environmental impact and, given the altitude, quantity and nature of aviation emissions, an especially significant effect on global warming. Decisions have to be made soon. From development to production to service and final scrapping, major new aircraft have a life cycle of some 50 years. Given that planning horizon, 2010 looks like a reasonable target date for improved environmental technologies if much of aviation's glittering new promise is to be realised.
But what captivated my attention in this article was the last part about future commercial supersonic and hypersonic (at least five times the speed of sound) planes. In particular, the Economist describes the HyperSoar.
The HyperSoar is a concept for a craft flying at ten times the speed of sound and able to reach any point on the globe within two hours. Hydrogen powered, it would use air-breathing, rocket-based engines to ascend to the outer limits of the Earth's atmosphere where it would skitter in and out of the atmosphere like a stone being skimmed across the surface of a pond. If it works, the craft would also make access to space a great deal cheaper. Today, HyperSoar is little more than an idea. Even if an unmanned prototype is developed, passenger flight at this speed is a long way off, and likely to come long after any military application.
Here is a small rendering of the HyperSoar (Credit: Preston Carter, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory).
You can find more information about the HyperSoar at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where aerospace engineer Preston Carter invented it.
HyperSoar -- a concept-development project funded through Livermore's Physics Directorate and the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program -- could transport people or cargo, strike enemy targets, or help put satellites into space.
"The fact that HyperSoar has many potential uses is key," says Carter. "Developing an entirely new aircraft is expensive. However, if there is a large market for such an aircraft, the cost per plane goes down. It's like the difference between a 747 and the Stealth bomber. There are hundreds of Boeing 747s being used by commercial airline companies, airfreight companies, and so on. But the only market for the Stealth is the military, which only needs a few. That's why you'll never see a Stealth being built for much less than they cost today."
And now, it's time for dreaming.
Inclusive of the time taken and distances covered by the ascent and descent portions of a flight, a trip from Chicago to Tokyo (10,123 kilometers) would involve about 18 skips and 72 minutes, and to travel from Los Angeles to New York (3,978 kilometers) would involve about 5 skips and take 35 minutes. (Both flights require a total of about 2,450 kilometers and 27 minutes for take off and landing.)
Sources: The Economist, December 11, 2003; and various websites
12:37:35 PM
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