London to Tokyo in two hours: Blueprints for 3,000mph hypersonic plane are unveiled...

[Slack lines]

London to Tokyo in two hours: Blueprints for 3,000mph hypersonic plane are unveiled...but it'll take 40 years to build

[Ken L]

The plane appears to be sub orbital which means it climbs very high to achieve high relative speeds. Great for trips to the other side of the world if the passangers can hold onto their lunch in low gravity but tring to extrapolate a three and a half hour trip to Australia into getting somewhere local like souther Europe in a few minutes shows that the jorno doesn't really grasp the concept.

[ColinW]

if the passangers can hold onto their lunch in low gravity

 

The gravity won't be noticeably less than on any other plane Ken. Well, not until it breaks down and falls out of the sky!

The graphics seem to show only about 20 passengers (ten windows on each side and one passenger shown sat next to each). God only knows how much they would have to charge to make that pay!

[Ken L]

Hi Colin.

I count 40 passengers as it looks like two each side but the "fact file" says 100. Guess it's more of an artists impression than a blueprint !

The gravity experienced will depend on flight perameters but most models suggest a horizontal take-off with a steep climb under power before coating up to maximun height in a parabolic path once the engines shut off. This would be followed by decent and in this senario, ocupants would experience microgravity - as well os a good dose of radiation.

 

Weightlessness

In the suborbital flight regime, weightlessness or microgravity is not a significant issue. First, a suborbital flight might subject crew and passengers to a maximum of perhaps 3½ minutes of microgravity. Second, the most significant risk related to brief exposure to reduced gravity is motion sickness or nausea. The remaining biological effects of reduced gravity conditions typically take exposures of hours to days to manifest themselves and of concern only during orbital or interplanetary operations.

 

During a short exposure of a few minutes, allowing passengers to unstrap from their seats and then return to their seats before deceleration commences may be impractical in any event.

The risk of space motion sickness or nausea is most significant during the first few days of orbital space flight and tends to manifest itself within an hour or so in susceptible people. Recovery generally occurs within 1½ to 2 days of flight.

 

The risk of nausea in reduced gravity is significantly abated if provocative motions, especially of the head, are avoided. During suborbital flights, the risk will be reduced if vehicle occupants remain strapped into their seats during the flight. During a short exposure of a few minutes, allowing passengers to unstrap from their seats and then return to their seats before deceleration commences may be impractical in any event.

 

Incipient motion sickness can be countered by holding the head in a fixed position. Odds of nausea can be reduced by various medications taken in advance of the flight and by prior familiarization with exposure to reduced gravity in aircraft flights. In a multipassenger vehicle, one passenger becoming nauseated can potentially trigger nausea in the others.

 

If passengers are in pressure suits instead of a shirtsleeve environment during suborbital flight, response to nausea would require opening the helmet face plate to get a waste bag into position. Vomiting into a closed pressure suit helmet and/or oxygen mask is not only unpleasant but also dangerous.

[Cranfield]

Thats disappointing, I would have hoped that in 40 years time they would have worked out how to transport matter like they do in Star Wars, sort of "Beam me up Easy Jet".

[captain cojones]

Bet they still lose cases...........................

[ColinW]

Ken, I think you are confusing this with Richard Bransons toy. This craft is going to fly several thousand miles at an altitude of 20 miles. That isn't a parabolic flight, just a very fast, very high plane.

Edited June 21, 2011 by ColinW

[Ken L]

You may be right but have a look here where it says

Three engines

 

The ZEHST, which is being developed with Japanese collaboration (while Concorde was a French-British project), will carry between 50 to 100 passengers.

 

The plane will take off from a conventional runway, powered initially by conventional turbo-fans. Once airborne, the plane’s rocket engines and ramjets (which are used in missiles) will lift it 32 km up into the high atmosphere.

 

At the end of the flight the craft will glide down to earth and redeploy the turbo-fans for a controlled landing.

[ColinW]

Yes, but it remains an aeroplane rather than becoming a ballistic projectile like Branson's creation. It will be flying by using its wings to provide lift. Even though there isn't much air up there it won't need much because of its ridiculous speed.

The Americans have already tested a plane (the unmanned X43) using what they call scramjet technology which has got up to mach 10. This also flies like a plane, although it hasn't even got recognizable "wings", it's more like an aerial surfboard!

It strikes me that if Concorde couldn't be made to pay in the days when telephones had dials, what chance has this proposed new hypersonic transport got? This is a world where I can communicate with a workmate of mine while I'm sat at my desk and he is sat in a bar in Shanghai! What will we be able to do in forty years?