Aerospace Technology

As the 21st century began, scientists began to create supersonic combustion ramjets or “scramjets” in short. These high-altitude jet vehicles such as the X-43A are designed primarily for speedy transportation. Researchers predict that scramjets can reach 15 times the speed of sound where an 18-hour trip from Tokyo to New York City becomes a 2-hour trip. In my opinion, if scramjets were used for commercial purposes, I believe that reaching Europe or Asia(from Costa Rica) wouldn´t be as long however it may be very expensive. The technology behind this fast-moving vehicle is very similar to a rocket. A rocket burns its fuel by using a combustion chamber therefore, it creates a significant large amount of weight. In a combustion chamber, an oxidizing substance is used to burn the fuel and both the oxidizing substance and fuel is very expensive because of its large quantities. However, a scramjet burns its fuel by collecting air from atmospheric altitude without the need of a combustion chamber. This, therefore, brings less weight on the vehicle, becomes faster, and much much cheaper than a rocket. During the Apollo Program,(program to produce rockets to reach the moon) the Saturn V rocket(most powerful rocket in history) reached the speed of Mach 3, three times the speed of sound. On the contrary, the U.S. Air Force SR-71 is a currently used manned aircraft that reached 3.4 Mach, 3.4 times the speed of sound. Currently, scramjets are being tested unmanned and the U.S. Air Force SR-71 is an example of a manned scramjet. NASA’s Hyper-X Phase 1 is a project conducted by the Langley Research Center located in Hampton, Virginia. Phase 1 will take seven years and will cost about 230 million dollars for research on flight-validate scramjet propulsion, hypersonic aerodynamics, and design methods.

 On June, 2007, The Australian Defence Science and Technology Organization(DSTO) tested their scramjet engine and reached 10 Mach, 10 times the speed of sound. HyCause is Hypersonic Collaborative Australia/United States Experiment where the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and DSTO are researching and testing together in Australia. This success is the key for a 2-hour trip from London to Sydney, Australia. Not only are the U.S. and Australia working on scramjet projects but Japan and Italy are researching and developing scramjets. If this hypersonic engine is used for commercial purposes, long-durated plane trips may no longer be a problem and some military leaders are considering scramjets for military purposes as well. They have concluded that military scramjets would send too much infrared to be detected by satellite and be followed by a heat-guided missile. However, they have realized that there is no such missile that can reach Mach 10 and its speed may be the key for its defence.

Personally, I think that scramjets is a big success in the aerospace industry because it may change the speed in aerial transportation. While you are reading, aerospace engineers are researching and developing scramjet engines at this moment. At the same time, scientists are researching the propulsion and lots of other people are having different roles in the creation and development of scramjets. Currently, aerospace engineers are working on NASA´s Hyper-X Phase 1 at the Langley Research Center at Hampton, Virginia.

Information from: wikipedia.org and nasa.gov

The link underneath has a video about the X-43A scramjet. Note: The rocket you see falling from the plane is not the scramjet. The scramjet is strapped on the rocket to increase its speed because it needs a specific speed to start absorbing atmospheric air. After the rocket lets go of the scramjet, it would be hard to locate it on camera since it´s too fast.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6652339530072290462

Aerospace engineers have lots of different roles in the creation of aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, and many other high-altitude vehicles. Although aerospace engineers know the basics of aircraft and spacecraft (both vehicle’s science are very similar), most engineers are specialized in either one of them. Engineers specialized in aircraft are aeronautical engineers while focusing on spacecraft are astronautical engineers. Without them, space travel and traveling to distant countries are impossible. For example, if there were no spacecraft, our way of sending television through communication satellites would be impossible therefore, our entertainment through television must depend on the country. Costa Rica, for example, produces Canal 7 and Teletica. Imagine if you had no choice but to entertain yourself by viewing the channels produced in Costa Rica and couldn’t view other channels such as ESPN or HBO since there were no communicating satellites. Even if there were, how will people send them to space? Aerospace engineers can do the job and produce rockets or space shuttles in order to allow astronauts to take it to space. In addition, perhaps you wanted to see your grandmother or friend in a distant country and if there were no airplanes, how will you get there? For example, if you were living in the U.S. and wanted to visit France or China, will you take a boat if there were no airplanes? Basically, these engineers create beneficial products to help the human population.

According to my tone and information, it seems that aerospace engineers make all the aircraft and spacecraft. However, aerospace engineers work in teams made up of mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and other engineers where each of them has an important individual role in the creation. The teamwork and cooperation results in the creation of a full aircraft or spacecraft which is then, used differently. Specifically, aerospace engineers create or develop small or big components in the vehicle, supervise the creation of the components, or even create guidance systems and controls, usually for missiles. As I said before, aerospace engineers cannot produce vehicles without teamwork and cooperation and individuals are useless in the aerospace industry.

I feel that aerospace engineers are very important to many people who use vehicles as transportation or to astronauts who transports satellites into space because without them, many luxuries such as ESPN, CNN, or HBO could not have existed in Costa Rica. Also, visiting countries across oceans could not have been possible without aerospace engineers (on vacation, long journey on boat may be possible) since airplanes allow fast journeys to a location. For these reasons, I think that aerospace engineers have great power over humans where the extinction of these engineers may become a problem in the next generation.

     Aerodynamics

This blog was created to talk about aerospace engineering, a topic I am really interested in, and the primary goal I will try to perform is to explain, what is aerospace engineering and why we need it in life. I feel that many people that I know has not been introduced to this particular topic therefore, I will try my best to allow the readers to understand and learn about aerospace engineering. I will also try to update information and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask questions in any of the comment boxs. Thank You

 Variety of aerospace engineering results