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Bloodhound supersonic car sniffs new land speed record
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Bloodhound on the trail of land speed record
Boredom with the games may also be an issue. In 2005, Brock Dubbels at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis started studying the potential fitness benefits of Dance Dance Revolution, a game in which players copy on-screen dance moves on a touch-sensitive mat. He could not get enough children to play regularly enough to produce meaningful results. These questions will be addressed in upcoming clinical trials, but Rohrman is not waiting on the results. His Wii console is no longer mothballed: “When I saw what it could do for me, I thought I should stick with it.” ■
from the other end of the cylinder, which pushes the rocket forward. Changing the flow of hydrogen peroxide alters the thrust. Last week, Noble announced that his team had completed the first tests of a ⅓-scale prototype rocket engine at a test site in the Mojave desert in California. One way to judge the performance of a rocket engine is to examine the telltale diamond
“The Bloodhound supersonic car is designed to go faster than 1600 kilometres per hour” patterns in its exhaust which are formed by reflected supersonic shock waves. “This first engine looks to be functioning very efficiently from the shape of the flame and the distinct Mach diamonds,” says Adam Baker, an expert on hybrid rocket engines with Surrey Satellite Technology, a space technology company in Guildford, UK. The next stage of the project may be more challenging. “Scaling up hybrids can be difficult because the fluid flow inside the engine can change significantly as the size of the port in the fuel goes up,” says Baker. Tests of a larger hybrid engine are scheduled to start on 2 July. Robin Hague ■
CURVENTA
atrophying in the meantime. The solution: a hacked controller from Guitar Hero, a game that challenges players to tap out a melody using five buttons on the neck of a mock guitar. Vogelstein modified the device so that it could be driven by signals picked up by electrodes placed on the arms of amputees instead. The same signals will be used to control the prosthetic limb. Guitar Hero is more compelling than any “gimmicky rehab game”, says Vogelstein, and amputees quickly learn how to use the modified controller. Promising case studies abound, but the field is still short on hard evidence. Herz, Hone and Vogelstein are all planning largescale clinical trials, but no game has undergone rigorous testing
WHEN the supersonic car Bloodhound SSC streaks across the desert sometime in 2011 in its bid to break the land speed record, it will be powered by no fewer than three different types of engine. A rocket will boost the car to around 1200 kilometres per hour, (Mach 1) while a Eurofighter jet engine will provide more controllable thrust to coax it up to 1600 km/h. Finally, the car is equipped with a V12 petrol engine to pump the fuel and provide electrical and hydraulic power to the jet and rocket. The car is being developed by a team led by Richard Noble whose Thrust SSC has held the land speed record of 1221 km/h or Mach 1.02 since 1997. Bloodhound SSC is designed to break the 1600 km/h barrier. While the jet and petrol engines are well-established technologies, the team is building the rocket motor from scratch. The engine is a hybrid design that uses liquid hydrogen peroxide as an oxidiser to burn solid polyethylene, the same stuff that –Health in your hands?– plastic bags are made of. Hydrogen peroxide is squirted into one end of a hole running down the centre of a yet. As a result, almost nothing is cylinder of polyethylene, burning the known about how long patients plastic from the inside out. This should play for, or which types creates a supersonic flow of exhaust of game bring the most benefit.
–Rocket plus jet equals speed– 27 June 2009 | NewScientist | 21
Bloodhound on the trail of land speed record
Boredom with the games may also be an issue. In 2005, Brock Dubbels at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis started studying the potential fitness benefits of Dance Dance Revolution, a game in which players copy on-screen dance moves on a touch-sensitive mat. He could not get enough children to play regularly enough to produce meaningful results. These questions will be addressed in upcoming clinical trials, but Rohrman is not waiting on the results. His Wii console is no longer mothballed: “When I saw what it could do for me, I thought I should stick with it.” ■
from the other end of the cylinder, which pushes the rocket forward. Changing the flow of hydrogen peroxide alters the thrust. Last week, Noble announced that his team had completed the first tests of a ⅓-scale prototype rocket engine at a test site in the Mojave desert in California. One way to judge the performance of a rocket engine is to examine the telltale diamond
“The Bloodhound supersonic car is designed to go faster than 1600 kilometres per hour” patterns in its exhaust which are formed by reflected supersonic shock waves. “This first engine looks to be functioning very efficiently from the shape of the flame and the distinct Mach diamonds,” says Adam Baker, an expert on hybrid rocket engines with Surrey Satellite Technology, a space technology company in Guildford, UK. The next stage of the project may be more challenging. “Scaling up hybrids can be difficult because the fluid flow inside the engine can change significantly as the size of the port in the fuel goes up,” says Baker. Tests of a larger hybrid engine are scheduled to start on 2 July. Robin Hague ■
CURVENTA
atrophying in the meantime. The solution: a hacked controller from Guitar Hero, a game that challenges players to tap out a melody using five buttons on the neck of a mock guitar. Vogelstein modified the device so that it could be driven by signals picked up by electrodes placed on the arms of amputees instead. The same signals will be used to control the prosthetic limb. Guitar Hero is more compelling than any “gimmicky rehab game”, says Vogelstein, and amputees quickly learn how to use the modified controller. Promising case studies abound, but the field is still short on hard evidence. Herz, Hone and Vogelstein are all planning largescale clinical trials, but no game has undergone rigorous testing
WHEN the supersonic car Bloodhound SSC streaks across the desert sometime in 2011 in its bid to break the land speed record, it will be powered by no fewer than three different types of engine. A rocket will boost the car to around 1200 kilometres per hour, (Mach 1) while a Eurofighter jet engine will provide more controllable thrust to coax it up to 1600 km/h. Finally, the car is equipped with a V12 petrol engine to pump the fuel and provide electrical and hydraulic power to the jet and rocket. The car is being developed by a team led by Richard Noble whose Thrust SSC has held the land speed record of 1221 km/h or Mach 1.02 since 1997. Bloodhound SSC is designed to break the 1600 km/h barrier. While the jet and petrol engines are well-established technologies, the team is building the rocket motor from scratch. The engine is a hybrid design that uses liquid hydrogen peroxide as an oxidiser to burn solid polyethylene, the same stuff that –Health in your hands?– plastic bags are made of. Hydrogen peroxide is squirted into one end of a hole running down the centre of a yet. As a result, almost nothing is cylinder of polyethylene, burning the known about how long patients plastic from the inside out. This should play for, or which types creates a supersonic flow of exhaust of game bring the most benefit.
–Rocket plus jet equals speed– 27 June 2009 | NewScientist | 21