A personal comment: Many of the comments made to the Aviation Week article about the Lockheed-Martin SR-72 hypersonic plane reflect the sad mind-set of many people who do not see the value of technical advances like hypersonics and view research into the area as a waste. The history of modern civilization would have been drastically different had similar thinking determined the acceptance of another far fetched technology in its day - electricity. J. P. Morgan backed Edisons DC power while Westinghouse backed Teslas AC power to construct the Niagara power station in the 1890s. J. P. Morgans father thought that electricity was a stupid investment and demanded that his son forget about it. Tesla and Westinghouse won the competition but it almost bankrupted Westinghouse. J. P. Morgan ignored the demand of his father and then eventually bought the patents for AC power from Westinghouse as well as bought out Edisons interest in Edison General Electric. J. P. Morgan renamed the company General Electric and made AC power the central product of the company. The rest of the story is because of Morgans vision and persistence, the modern world, especially its industries, came about because of the push to build electric systems. Hypersonics will is at similar point, in that it will be THE major step towards common everyday spaceflight to permanent Earth-orbiting INDUSTRIAL platforms that will themselves be stepping stone to permanently orbiting Lunar and Martian platforms linked with nuclear fission or even fusion reactors using MHD generators and ion-propulsion.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 21:57:27 +0000