Routine Hypersonic Flight: The Final Frontier of Aeronautics | Kevin Bowcutt | TEDxSnoIsleLibraries

Hypersonic flight powered by ramjets and scramjets will continue to shrink our planet by reducing international flight time to a couple hours. This will enable us realize our dreams of exploring, industrializing, and even colonizing space by dramatically reducing the cost and inconvenience of space travel.
This talk was given at TEDxSnoIsleLibraries 2016 in Edmonds, Washington.
www.sno-isle.org/tedx
Kevin Bowcutt has been on the leading edge of aerospace science for the last three decades, whether leading classes of advanced engineering students or scientists. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and member of the National Academy of Engineering. Highlights of his 30-year career include leading the team that designed reusable space launch vehicles with the National Aerospace Plane program and investigating the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Kevin is now at Boeing Research & Technology.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@isn0t42]

“The dreams of faster flight and space travel are converging and creating an exciting future, where new dreams at the edge of the imaginable are ready to be realized.”

[@kevinbowcutt1205]

A couple replies to comments. A hypersonic airplane must of course reach hypersonic speed with a low-speed propulsion system such as a turbojet. Just having anti-matter power available doesn't solve the hypersonic flight problem in and of itself, or any flight problem for that matter. Reaction thrust must still be created by energizing (heating) and accelerating mass, such as air or rocket propellants. Anti-matter would provide only the energy to accelerate matter, replacing other sources of energy such as jet fuel. Of course an anti-matter power system does not exist and may not exist anytime soon. If, however, we someday harness a form of safe nuclear power (taking advantage of E=mc^2) it would dramatically change how we fly at any speed and remove some current barriers to hypersonic flight. Something like this may be 50 or more years away but I anticipate it will happen eventually. There are researchers and start-ups today with good ideas for harnessing anti-matter for propulsion applications. It's worth doing some research on the subject.

[@joeclark6763]

If you can figure out a way of mass producing anti-matter... and store it safely/efficiently. SCRAM jet is a fantastic idea to produce near (ish lol) term results.

[@Kman31ca]

At CERN, they created a tiny, tiny amount of antimatter.

[@espritgaronne9975]

The next level is the application of Janus Cosmological Model, we can't fight turbulence in old-school way.

[@TrickysBen]

Hi Kevin, just wanted to drop this comment in case you still looked at this video, or your channel. I'm reading some disappointing comments from individuals who seems to misconstrue your comments regarding nuclear propulsion as statements of disregard towards continued efforts in scram tech. I am wrapping up a masters in propulsion from Purdue, and trust me when I say that each facet of your talk absolutely checked the boxes of what I am looking for when we talk about the future of propulsion. Improvements to Isp, reusability, and combustion dynamics we see today with SpaceX's Raptor, when compared to something like the F1, can't be denied, but given the 280s Isp of the F1, I'd bet if you asked a crowd for a guess at where we've come with Isp improvements 60 years later, their guesses would be in the thousands. People do not realize the fundamental limitations of chemical propulsion, and while we have come a very long way in improving these engines, I ask that you disregard the criticism from those who haven't studied firsthand these combustion limits in regard to reusability and SSTO. Thank you for this wonderful talk!

[@JohnReslerpages]

You had me until you said anti-matter. Solving the anti-matter power problem is more intractable than hypersonic flight has been and indeed, makes a scramjet irrelevant.

[@Hugh345678]

A legend of his time but with modern simulation and a better understanding of hypersonic flow, everyone's narrowing in on detonation driven combustion as a way to make hypersonics viable.

[@earlygail]

He had me going until the left exit to anti-matter Crazytown. If we’re going to be waiting on a viable AM power source, I’ll just take the transmat beam to Tokyo.

[@tomriley5790]

Either nuclear fusion or probably simpler - convert CO2 to Methane via the Sabatier reaction to provide fuel - CO2 neutral... (or a combination of both, use the electricity from the nuclear fusion to enable the methane to be produced cost effectively)

[@cobrapub]

cobrapub here,If done properly with EGRESS the HSCY could be the SAFEST aircraft ever built but it will be the most expensive aircraft EVER!

[@md.al-aminsardar6096]

Outstanding ❤️🚀✈️❤️

[@gfxminer4809]

2 hours strapped on the seat fighting the high G forces would be nice experience I guess

[@Rush2kvideos]

If the G-Force didn’t kill you first. A human can only withstand 9 Gs before they loose conscience. Around 5 or 6 Gs(depending the person) your blood vessels start to bust. This makes me sad in some ways. He said Mach 25. Made me excited until I remembered that little tidbit of information that a F-16 pilot told me. 😢

[@TSERJI]

But you wouldn’t experience those G forces for 2 hours. Only during the acceleration and deceleration would you experience them. In cruise, the plane is traveling at a constant speed (aka 0 acceleration), so you wouldn’t feel a thing

[@akbarrishtonov8033]

Nice jobs,thanks share

[@undertow2142]

Fission could power it

[@troyhayder6986]

There are many states of matter.. Four of them are, solid, liquid, gas and plasma... There are two methods I know of of controlling the state of matter, temperature and pressure, there may be others... Objects move eight times faster through plasma than gas... Suggestion.. Coat the surface of a plane in an extremely cold substance and keep it at that temperature... Coat that extremely cold substance in plasma... The extremely cold substance prevents the plane burning up.. It cancels out the plasma to prevent the plane burning up... The layer of plasma around the plane converts the surrounding gas into plasma... So you basically cutting through the air with a plasma knife.. Its the exact same principle of canceling out hot with cold... Like using an ice compress when your sweating... Or if you can use physics to repel particles away from the aircraft you are creating a vacuum.. And there is no resistance in a vacuum.. So it's an even sharper kind of knife...

[@t.3465]

How would you coat a plane (or any solid object) in plasma that can't escape

[@troyhayder6986]

@@t.3465 by keeping the surface extremely cool...

[@milxl]

What do you think about space x BFR travel ?

[@aandc2005]

I got thinking. the wings get you off the ground at slower speeds and are good for maneuvering, but really there no need to have them at higher mach numbers, like mach 6. I would think they would create more drag the faster you go, not to mention the leading edges and the rest of the wing would really heat up. they should make them fold in like the tomcat only at a lot more angle, almost no wing at all. wouldn't that work in creating less drag and higher speeds?

[@andrewy362]

it would make for a heavy aircraft, there's a reason the swing wing design found in the Tomcat and Tornado are no longer being used. You're not wrong in saying they would work though, if they were able to swing into the body as well as back Main problems are the propulsion system; turbojets, ramjets, scramjets and even shcramjets seem to be only usable at a certain range of speeds, so there needs to be some advancement in combining these into one working system. Also the thermal protection of the materials on the surface are a bit of an issue for reusable craft

[@JohnReslerpages]

The idea is to start light and simple. Complex is hard and creating variable geometry wings in this flight regime is exceptionally hard. I'm just a former USAF pilot/current software engineer so I know nothing about this kind of engineering. I do think the idea of "pumping" energy into the process from the ground using microwaves would provide the necessary thrusties to then take advantage of the scramjet.

[@richardpetek712]

John Resler, for the start: a car has a 100-400 kilowatt (kW) motor. A locomotive has 10 times more, which is a few megawatts (MW). So you would want to send some 100 MW (or some 10% of a nuclear power plant) and aim it "precisely" to a plane, flying 20-30 km over your head at Mach 6, along the whole route? And microwaves, do you know that your microwave oven in the kitchen operates at 0,5-1 kW? That's about a million times less that you want to send to the plane. I have a respect at USAF pilots, so next time check some things first. Even if the plane could survive, you'd get grilled chicken instead of passengers at the landing.

[@arturoeugster2377]

There is another way using the SABRE engine by Reaction Engines in the UK. SKYLON

[@TheCareerpedia]

3:10 3 things

[@nighthawkviper6791]

Light, Dialectrics, and Electromagnetism are the frontier after that.

[@MrBugman2525]

looks like a plane from the movie 2001 a space oddesey

[@relaxationstation7374]

If this unit can be turned around 5 times per day it should be a viable commercial success... I just hate the idea of waiting 20 years for that to happen... Maybe we need a little motivation from someone like the Russians trying to beat us to the punch or heaven forbid, another world war. The aeronautical technology that personally excites me the most is low orbit hypersonic flight in which virtually any global position can be reached within 45 minutes and of course we would have to be traveling well in excess of Mach 10 for that to happen.

[@douglasmcintyre3297]

Don't hold your breath ...

[@kaiusernameisbetter2522]

18:03 u mean first stage? A scramjet cant operate in spac

[@MrBugman2525]

how about electro magnetic hypersonic flight

[@Rush2kvideos]

Now that is the right way to think... But, modern science hasn’t figured out how to do that yet. If we could we could theoretically just use the Earths magnetic field to get into outer space. Like 2 magnets facing towards each other on the same polarity.

[@t.3465]

Nuclear spaceplanes and orbital skyhooks, here we come I guess

[@suchdevelopments]

🥰😍🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑How are you this sunny morning in Goonellabah on North Coast NSW, Australia? Bring it on - whatever the mind could conceive, it would believe.

[@ftwldy666]

G THEORY

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

You were a couple of months from a PhD in hypersonic aerodynamics, and you were mesmerized by something in a TV presidential speech? I already don't trust your judgment.

[@t.3465]

Well, I definitely CAN trust the judgement of the leading scientist in a successful hypersonic test plane project.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

@@t.3465 About everything whatsoever? Then I certainly don't trust your judgment, either. I can tell you, I've been around the block a few times, and one thing I've certainly seen is that brilliant people sometimes make shockingly foolish statements.

[@stephenverchinski9967]

Yep, i really want to dodge debris both on the way up and way down..Nope.

[@isn0t42]

Actually, routine single stage to space flight is the only way to solve the space debris problem.

[@popothebright]

The issue with our merely supersonic (not hypersonic) flights was insane fuel consumption. As with the Hyperloop, the world seems to be getting terribly excited about hyper-expensive mass transit ideas which will whisk the world's .01%'ers to destinations at ever faster speeds and higher costs. In the case of hypersonic flight, we can add spectacular fuel inefficiency to that list of cons. Yeah, it's a cool concept. No, we don't need it.

[@ajvlfc]

Hypersonic flight is cheaper than supersonic flight. No moving parts, more slender body, newer technology engines. Cost of development is one-time. We scoffed at reusable rockets 10 years ago. Look where it's got us.

[@popothebright]

@@ajvlfc the point remains. It is not mass transit. It is transportation for the .01% The audience is applauding for technology they will never be able to experience.

[@blameyourself4489]

popothebright. I fully agree with you.

[@sycodeathman]

People said the same about jet aircraft. They were more thirsty, less reliable, and more expensive than propeller driven aircraft. However, once engineers realized that if you could fly several times higher and faster than any possible propeller driven craft, you wouldn't *need* the efficiency of a propeller plane to make the same distance flights with similar amounts of fuel, and in fact you could go even further while using *less* fuel than a prop plane. This is because for all the extra fuel burned per unit thrust of a jet engine, the much faster cruising speed means that per kilometer the fuel consumption goes down. The same can be true for supersonic and hyper-sonic travel. Both airplanes would use pretty much the same amount of fuel per flight, with less efficient but more powerful engines granting higher cruising speeds that resulted in highly increased range and top speed capability, while equaling or exceeding the kilometers-per-liter figure of a conventional jet engine. The problem with supersonic flight is that you're producing a loud shock wave, and you are close enough to the ground that that shock wave is still very strong once it reaches people and buildings below. Concorde for example was not allowed to fly over land while cruising at top speed because it could shatter windows and definitely would cause complaints. A hyper-sonic plane on the other hand flies so high that the shock wave mostly dissipates by the time it reaches the ground, becoming more of a rumble than a crack. NASA is currently testing an X plane that is trying to figure out a body geometry that doesn't produce a significant shock wave at supersonic speeds at all, which would have direct consequences to near term high speed air travel. There's no reason a hyper sonic or supersonic plane ticket would need to cost so much money that only the upper upper class could afford to buy one. In fact that would be a terrible business model because you'd barely have any customers. It's in these companies best interests to keep ticket prices low enough that as many people can afford one as possible. In my mind the only real concern with costs associated with super and hyper-sonic flight are the possible maintenance issues due to the increased pressure and thermal cycling as well as the more advanced engines.

[@blameyourself4489]

Rothpol X. Why always these comparisons to other technologies? When you have a break-through somewhere, it has absolutely nothing to do with earlier technology - apart that those have laid the foundation for something completely new. The propeller must go! That's the future.

[@dgsh20]

Anyone who can summarize this video,?

[@atlet1]

The first aircraft was flown by Otto Lilienthal in Germany 1891. He developed the aeronautics and aerodynamics later aircraft designers, like the Wright brothers used. They developed the control surfaces, placed an engine on a glider and wan a competition among many that worked with similar ideas. Lilienthal unfortunately died in a aircrash 1896. Already an experienced pilot vith 2000 flights behind him. No suitable engines existed at the time, but he was an engineer in the field of engine construction and would certainly have placed an engine on his gliders if he had survived. The american propaganda in this and many other issues is false or delusive.

[@geekyourlikeslulu]

His breath sounds like he's nervous

[@RoParky]

Why is he wheezing like Darth Vader?

[@eljcd]

Eeh... this guy knows that Iron Man is a movie character, it doesn't?

[@mikewillis44]

Insane waste of money.The british have come up with a much better hypersonic system and DARPA is testing and Lockheed are buying it.

[@mikewillis44]

all it has to do is touch anti matter and it will blow the thing to bits

[@mikewillis44]

I couldn't understand it. How does it reach that speed each time ? How does it slow down to land ? You have to use a reaction type engine for hypersonic flight. Thermodynamics is the only way to propel a hypersonic plane. This is just another money wasting project for the military industrial complex. This guy is selling snake oil. Good Luck. look up Skylon and Lapcat.

[@sycodeathman]

Turboramjet to reach scramjet ignition velocity, scramjet takes over and accelerates to high speed cruise, throttle scramjet down via choking fuel flow to reduce speed until turboramjets can take back over for landing.