Icarus reborn

Solar Impulse - continental flight powered by the sun

A story of adventure, danger and a real pioneering spirit is that of the Solar Impulse, the world's most
advanced sun-powered aircraft.

This project reveals the same determination as those early aviators demonstrated.  Solar Impulse's latest flight lasted some 20 hours taking the pilot from California to Phoenix, Arizona.

The plane often flies high at 27,000 feet to maximise the solar charging ability.  With a tailwind it can manage 110 kph, although the regular cruise speed is around 70 kph.

It's light, around the weight of a small car, so it does tend to get buffeted by wind, it doesn't fly well in cloud and it takes a skillful pilot to keep this one airborne.

Solar Impulse flew for 26 hours on its maiden flight.  That is an incredible time for a pilot to stay alert but it does show the amazing range of this aircraft.  The batteries allow for this epic journey as the stored power enables it to fly by day and night.

Those incredible 63 metre long wings have some 12,000 photovoltaic cells to charge the batteries.

This is an amazing aircraft and one that will no doubt break all sorts of distance records for a craft that is powered not by fossil fuels but by the electricity generated from sunlight alone.

Another example of how science is pushing the barriers of what we can expect from renewable energy sources.

A 63m wingspan and 12,000 photovoltaic solar cells

Links to Solar Impulse

The Solar Impulse

The Solar Impulse (Wikipedia)

The Solar Impulse (youTube channel)

First leg of journey - California to Arizona (Mashable)

Galactic tourists

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo

Richard Branson is not a man to be easily discouraged.  His business empire stretches the length and breadth of the globe and he seems to excel at (almost) everything he turns his hand to.

Virgin Galactic must be his most ambitious project to date and he aims to kick off a new age of space tourism.  The challenges are numerous and fraught with danger but I have no doubt that he will triumph as he throws an enormous amount of money at it.

The current asking price for one of those 6 passenger seats on SpaceShipTwo is some $US200,000.  That will buy you approximately 6 minutes of weightlessness and something to brag about when your return to terra firma.  Already they have 500 registered space tourists - many have chosen to remain anonymous but others are happy to be identified.

In a bygone age we would have relied on the military powers of the US or the now defunct Soviet Union for this kind of frontier technology but now we have enterprising billionaires who are prepared to invest their considerable fortunes in pushing those barriers.

The very best of luck to Branson's team for their supersonic trials.

SpaceShipTwo Links

SpaceShipTwo is carried aloft 

SpaceShipTwo

Virgin Galactic

SpaceShipTwo plans to go supersonic (NBC)

Breaking the sound barrier in SpaceshipTwo (Discovery)

How SpaceShipTwo works

01/05/2013

The test scheduled for 30/04 went according to plan and SpaceShipTwo achieved supersonic speed, albeit for just a few secoonds.  These powered flight trials are important stepping stones in gaining approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and vital to making this project a reality.

Something that Virgin train passengers can relate to - Virgin Galactic are putting up their prices. Branson is announcing that the asking price for new ticket-buyers is going up to $250,000 a pop.  "In about a week's time, we're going to put the price up to $250,000 until the first 1,000 people have traveled,” Branson said, "so that it matches up with inflation since we started."  Time to get in quick to bag a bargain?

Source: MarsScientific.com

Lots of news stories all over the web.  Here are links to a few of them . . .

Independent Television News (ITN)

CBC News

Space.com

Wired.com

Hypersonic gliders

Artist's impression of the DARPA HTV-2 Hyper glider 

The US military has been experimenting with some very fast moving objects indeed.  They successfully launched and monitored a glider flying at Mach 20 - that's around 21,000 km/h.  Well that's too fast for me to comprehend but I believe them when they say that, at this speed, they can respond to a threat anywhere on earth within an hour.

Not everything went to plan and the glider was hypersonic at speeds of Mach 17-22 for just 139 seconds.

Some random thoughts from me on this . . .

• This is an awesome although somewhat scary technology
• I'm impressed that they can build something that moves at this speed yet still remains controllable
• I wouldn't have wanted to be standing anywhere nearby when the sonic boom kicked in (although that's not likely when they took this to the edge of space to perform the trial)
• The acceleration on this thing must be mind-boggling - how fast could this have flown with a man or woman on board without turning them into soup? 
• Explanations of why the flight was so short suggested that the extreme speed caused the shell to peel off.  Did they intend to test it to destruction or was this an accident?
• I guess they are going to be spending an awful long time analysing the data they collected from the mission, even if it was cut short
• That analysis is not going to be available to anyone outside of the US government or military 
• Let's hope that our government stays friendly with the US when they have the money, capability and appetite to pursue such programmes of military development 
• Let's hope that non-democratic powers aren't doing the same.

Hyper glider article on Stuff.co.nz

More info on the DARPA HTV-2 flight at Space.com