Japan Solicits NASA's Help on Supersonic Jet 162
An anonymous reader writes "Since the Concorde supersonic jet is now retired, Japan is looking for the next generation supersonic flight solution. Japan's space agency is planning talks with NASA next month. They are looking for a partner since they have experienced a 'string of glitches, including a nose cone problem during the latest test flight in March.'"
What happened to sub-orbital? (Score:2, Interesting)
Further, considering the resources required to maintain the concorde, which is reportedly the norm for such high performance aircraft, I see no reason why it wouldn't be more cost effective to move forward with the concept.
Granted the maintainance would need to be even more intensive and exacting, but rather than 2 hour transcontinental flights it would be on the order of 30 minutes, allowing for more time in maintainance between trips and creating a more compelling reason for those who consider time more important than money.
Re:Before re-inventing the wheel... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Before re-inventing the wheel... (Score:2, Interesting)
EXCERT
"The airline said that its decision had been made for commercial reasons with passenger revenue falling steadily against a backdrop of rising maintenance costs for the aircraft.
Detailed discussions over an extended period with Airbus, the aircraft's manufacturer, confirmed the need for an enhanced maintenance programme in the coming years, the carrier added.
British Airways has decided that such an investment cannot be justified in the face of falling revenue caused by a global downturn in demand for all forms of premium travel in the airline industry.
The downturn has had a negative impact on Concorde bookings and is set to continue for the foreseeable future, according to the airline."
Unequal (Score:5, Interesting)
Why NASA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Haven't the British and French teams who designed and built Concorde got the best experience?
Re:Before re-inventing the wheel... (Score:3, Interesting)
Aviation has moved on considerably since Concorde was designed in the 1960s, and much more efficient and wider fuselages can be designed today to accomodate a lot more passengers with lower drag.
Rolls Royce are also on record saying that there would be little improvement efficiency wise in newer turbojet and turbofan engines over the engines Concorde used, those engines were as efficient as they can be made even with current technology. The efficiencies seen elsewhere in engine design do not scale all the way up to engines capable of sustained mach 2.
Re:Artist's Rendition of the Japanese Supersonic J (Score:3, Interesting)
Just an artist's rendition? How about a video of the prototype taking off [www.jaxa.jp] instead?
It'll never fly (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It'll never fly (Score:5, Interesting)
First class is roughly two times more expensive than economy class. This one charging ten times the economy class will still produce enough demand to fill all seats.
> The sonic boom prevents any overflight of populated areas and even if significant noise reduction could be achieved the very small constituency for such a service would still see any residual boom noise used as an excuse by the general (and envious) public to restrict or outright ban such overflight
Most of the route over ocean, no problem. The part over populated land can be either performed at altitudes where the residual boom (after active silencing, tech already present in fighter planes) reaching the ground will be unaudible - or travel at subsonic speeds over the land.
> Exhaust emissions at 20km altitude (roughly double 10km of commercial jets) are of far greater environmental concern due to lower mixing rates with lower atmosphere
So there will be just a few such planes. With prices this high there won't be all that much demand anyway... and with enough lobbying environment impact will just get forgotten. Not that I want it, it's just a realistic look at what happens.
> Add to this the high costs of development,
Government-funded, NASA plus JSA, come on...
> relatively restricted range
Half the Earth. Do you need more?
>and limited routes
Only routes where it would make sense. Really no need to fly supersonic from New York to Washington DC. It's not meant to replace current planes, it's just to fill a small niche where there's small but constant demand and no supply.
> and you have a total non-starter.
You have some not all that hard obstacles, no showstoppers.
Re:Cooporation is the way of the future. (Score:5, Interesting)
When you pool resources you get things like the ISS. At this point in that project can we really say we haved saved money by doing it the international way? ?
As a NASA employee who has worked on ISS, no.
All the usual criticism of ISS aside, there are a few things that the cooperation with Russia enabled. Politically it made ISS much more viable as a program (frankly, it wouldn't be around without it) and an easier "sell" to congress. The alternate access with Soyuz has had obvious benefits with the orbiter problems. Personally, I enjoy working with my Russian counterparts very much and I love traveling there.
But cheaper? No way. It takes 10 times as long to solve even the most basic problems. With the Russians, the language barrier is significant (ever try to work out a complex technical problem through an interpreter?). The Europeans and Japanese communicate much faster since they have excellent English skills, but their overall lack of experience with manned spaceflight programs offset that advantage. Time zone differences are significant (all of our meetings must be extremely early in the morning for us and late in the afternoon for them). We spend a ton of money on international travel (there is no substitute for face to face meetings).
There is a lot of overhead associated with export control since anything associated with aerospace may be classified as a munition. Stuff that is classified can't be shared, period.
The Russians are so strapped for cash they generally won't give up documents/engineering support without a contract (and payment).
There is no "chief engineer". Whenever the crap hits the fan, there is no person at the top who can make a final decision (as would be the case in a program managed by, say, the Air Force). Many engineering problems become international negotiations with politics in the mix. When Dennis Tito paid for his Soyuz trip a number of years ago, the US laboratory had a massive systems failure several days before his launch. Some members of Russian management thought (due to the poor way NASA handled his flight) it was some sort of staged event and basically said they were going to launch him no matter what.
I'm sure many of you have international project success stories. For a large aerospace program, however, I think the only model that is really cost effective is having an international partner supply a subsytem as a "black box" and in a role subordinate to a overall integrator. That worked for the FGB module of ISS (which was procured from Krunichev under subcontract, on time, on budget). Partnership is definitely not cheaper.