• Contact with DARPA's Hypersonic Vehicle Lost
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[QUOTE]What looked to be a successful second launch of DARPA’s Falcon HTV-2 hypersonic vehicle has potentially taken a turn for the worse if DARPA’s Twitter feed is any indication. After successful launch, separation, contact with handlers on the ground, and entry into glide phase, the last we heard from DARPA via @DARPA_News doesn’t seem to bode well: “Range assets have lost telemetry with #HTV2. More to follow.” That was almost an hour ago at the time of this posting, and more has not followed. So we don’t know if that translates to a fully successful flight or to some kind of vehicle failure. We’ll update here when we have more info. HTV-2 was developed with one straightforward objective in mind: travel from anywhere on Earth to anywhere else on Earth in an hour. And with that goal in mind, DARPA has engineered a very fast vehicle. HTV-2 rides to near orbital speeds aboard a Minotaur rocket at which point it separates and enters a powered glide phase as it rides back to Earth at speeds topping Mach 20. That’s roughly 13,000 miles per hour (reportedly it is capable of a top speed approaching 17,000 miles per hour). In other words, fast enough to do New York to L.A. in 12 minutes, or London to Sydney in the aforementioned 60 minutes. All that is easier said than done, though the benefits doing so aren’t difficult to articulate. One could deliver anything from cargo to warheads to (potentially) people with such a hypersonic vehicle, and HTV-2 is DARPA’s means of testing the technologies that could someday shrink the entire world to a one-hour journey. Those technologies, however, are complex and as yet difficult to harness, and this wouldn’t be the first Falcon vehicle to end its mission early. During a test flight back in April of last year, DARPA’s first Falcon vehicle was lost nine minutes after launch. It was successfully delivered to its starting point, but engineers lost contact with the vehicle and a failsafe program put it into a controlled dive straight into the ocean. But DARPA describes the vehicle as a “data truck” due to its heavy sensor payload, and even an abbreviated flight drastically informs the field of hypersonic flight. The agency’s engineers used the data collected from that failed first attempt to tweak the design of their new HTV-2 and its mission, lowering the angle of attack and adjusting its center of gravity. Those adjustments seemed to be working early in today’s flight, and maybe they worked all the way through. When DARPA tells us something, we’ll tell you. In the meantime, brush up on HTV-2 via a mashup of DARPA vids below.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/darpas-htv-2-launches-status-mission-remains-unclear[/url]
First prototype fails after few minutes of successful flight, including a while of the hypersonic flight. "Ok we have loads of useful data which we can use and improve the second protype" Second prototype fails a short while after separation. "Ok fuck this"
It's gone into hyperspace, it'll be back in a thousand years.
And I was just reading the other thread. Refresh the page, and its gone. LOL
[QUOTE=markg06;31671766]It's gone into hyperspace, it'll be back in a thousand years.[/QUOTE] Ten thousand years into the future, a bunch of cavemen will be staggering around a ruined city, hunting evolved, giant, cats and dogs for food, when WHAM, a hypersonic plane comes out of nowhere and crashes straight into them.
[QUOTE=blazingfly;31671982]Ten thousand years into the future, a bunch of cavemen will be staggering around a ruined city, hunting evolved, giant, cats and dogs for food, when WHAM, a hypersonic plane comes out of nowhere and crashes straight into them.[/QUOTE] You have such big imagination.
[QUOTE=blazingfly;31671982]Ten thousand years into the future, a bunch of cavemen will be staggering around a ruined city, hunting evolved, giant, cats and dogs for food, when WHAM, a hypersonic plane comes out of nowhere and crashes straight into them.[/QUOTE] Way to go DARPA, killing off the last humans.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;31671761]First prototype fails after few minutes of successful flight, including a while of the hypersonic flight. "Ok we have loads of useful data which we can use and improve the second protype" Second prototype fails a short while after separation. "Ok we have even more data, what went wrong this time?"[/QUOTE]fix'd.
[QUOTE=markg06;31671766]It's gone into hyperspace, it'll be back in a thousand years.[/QUOTE] I'm sure the Asgard will send it back.
Now we know what happened in Roswell.
Well fuck.
[QUOTE=blazingfly;31671982]Ten thousand years into the future, a bunch of cavemen will be staggering around a ruined city, hunting evolved, giant, cats and dogs for food, when WHAM, a hypersonic plane comes out of nowhere and crashes straight into them.[/QUOTE] nah about 60 years from now, when we have these super sonic missiles perfected, the 2 we lost will exit hyper space and crash into a russian warship and start a world war.
[QUOTE=blazingfly;31671982]Ten thousand years into the future, a bunch of cavemen will be staggering around a ruined city, hunting evolved, giant, cats and dogs for food, when WHAM, a hypersonic plane comes out of nowhere and crashes straight into them.[/QUOTE] Alternatively... A tribe of herbivorous ape-like early humans is foraging for food in the African desert. A leopard kills one member, and another tribe of man-apes drives them from their water hole. Defeated, they sleep overnight in a small exposed rock crater, and awake to find a DARPA hypersonic vehicle has appeared in front of them. They approach it shrieking and jumping, and eventually touch it cautiously. Soon after, one of the apes (Daniel Richter) realizes how to use a bone as both a tool and a weapon, which the apes then use to kill prey for food. Later they reclaim control of the water hole from the other tribe by killing its leader. Triumphant, the ape leader throws his weapon-tool into the air...
Time traveling, I hear.
[QUOTE=Stren;31672404]fix'd.[/QUOTE] It fucked up earlier than it's predecessor, significantly earlier. It didn't fill it's purpose, didn't even reach the speeds it was supposed to be tested in.
Please be FTL, PLEASE BE FTL
[QUOTE=Intoxicated Spy;31674133]Please be FTL, PLEASE BE FTL[/QUOTE] Not yet, but with some calibrations it might be.
While regrettable, this still sounds awesome as hell. Please never change, DARPA.
If it goes into space, there is no air resistance, it would go forever, and get faster and faster. Until it crashes into pluto.
Meanwhile Pluto explodes due to an unforeseen super-meteor...
It traveled back in time, now the hopes are It'll crash right into Hitler's face :buddy:
[QUOTE=Thief;31675183]If it goes into space, there is no air resistance, it would go forever, and get faster and faster. Until it crashes into pluto.[/QUOTE] Except the engine has an air intake...
Hijacked by this man: [img]http://cdn.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/zaphod-beeblebrox.jpg[/img]
Didn't the Tunguska Event happen around this time of the year? :ohdear:
[QUOTE=little.sparrow;31674975]Not yet, but with some calibrations it might be.[/QUOTE] I highly doubt those rock-bangers have discovered eezo yet, let alone mass effect fields.
What does this meeeeeean?
[QUOTE=Slugathor;31678767]What does this meeeeeean?[/QUOTE] Science.
If it went back in time and changed something, everything could have changed and we wouldn't know it. :tinfoil:
[QUOTE=stupid07er;31675662]Hijacked by this man: [img]http://cdn.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/zaphod-beeblebrox.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]Zaphod would take it, wouldn't he. As long as it has a decent wine cellar of course...
[QUOTE=Thief;31675183]If it goes into space, there is no air resistance, it would go forever, and get faster and faster. Until it crashes into pluto.[/QUOTE] I saw an article about Facepunch claiming that objects in a perfect vacuum will still be subject to drag and friction because of intrinsic universal bullshit or something.
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