1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,320 Hello everyone, I'm Steele McGonigal. 2 00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:09,120 And I'm Kara O'Brien, and welcome to Destination Tomorrow. 3 00:00:09,120 --> 00:00:13,200 This program will uncover how past, present, and future research is creating today's knowledge 4 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:16,440 to answer the questions and solve the challenges of tomorrow. 5 00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:21,400 Today, flights into space are usually reserved for trained astronauts, but a new technology 6 00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:26,880 being developed by NASA may someday allow anyone the opportunity to travel into space. 7 00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:30,760 NASA's HyperX program is working on experimental engine designs that could eventually propel 8 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:32,640 commercial planes into space. 9 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:36,000 This new technology may make conventional rockets a thing of the past. 10 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:43,560 Tonya St. Romain finds out more about this fascinating new program. 11 00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:47,680 Have you ever dreamed of going to your local airport and getting on a cross-country flight 12 00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:50,200 that would take you minutes instead of hours? 13 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:54,000 Or getting on a flight that would actually take you into space? 14 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:58,960 This may seem like an unrealistic idea now, but in the near future, these dreams may actually 15 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:00,800 become reality. 16 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:05,240 NASA researchers in the HyperX program office are working on a new vehicle. 17 00:01:05,240 --> 00:01:07,520 It's called the X-43. 18 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:12,480 The vehicle will demonstrate technology that could someday allow aircraft to travel at 19 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:16,080 incredible speeds, even fly into space. 20 00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:22,760 The X-43 has a revolutionary new type of air-breathing engine called a scramjet that may enable future 21 00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:27,960 spacecraft to take off and land like an airplane instead of blasting off like a conventional 22 00:01:27,960 --> 00:01:28,960 rocket. 23 00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:34,680 The scramjet engine may also be used by commercial airlines, and that would significantly reduce 24 00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:37,520 the amount of travel time between destinations. 25 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:42,800 I spoke with NASA Manager Vince Rausch to find out more about the X-43 and the scramjet 26 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:43,800 engine. 27 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:47,720 Tonya, the X-43 is a revolutionary new kind of airplane. 28 00:01:47,720 --> 00:01:51,240 What we want to do with this is prove that hypersonic flight with an air-breathing engine 29 00:01:51,240 --> 00:01:52,240 is possible. 30 00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:55,960 Hypersonic flight means flying more than five times the speed of sound. 31 00:01:55,960 --> 00:02:00,000 Today, most airplanes fly below the speed of sound or subsonically. 32 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:05,640 This airplane, the X-43, which you see here full scale, inverted in the wind tunnel, uses 33 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:09,440 a new kind of engine to do that called a scramjet or supersonic combustion ramjet. 34 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:13,320 Vince, what makes the scramjet so special compared to a typical engine? 35 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:17,920 Well, the scramjet is very much like a jet engine as far as how it operates. 36 00:02:17,920 --> 00:02:21,760 However, if you look at a typical jet engine on today's airliners, what you see are fan 37 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:25,720 blades at the front that compress the air before it goes into the combustor section 38 00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,240 where it's mixed with fuel and burned to produce thrust. 39 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:32,840 The scramjet engine, such as this one, uses the forward velocity of the vehicle as it 40 00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:37,480 moves forward in the air to ram the air into the engine so it can do away with those fan 41 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:38,480 blades. 42 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:41,960 It then mixes the fuel, burns it, and produces a thrust. 43 00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:46,200 That's much more efficient at the higher velocities that this engine operates at than using compressor 44 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:47,200 blades. 45 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,360 What's the technology that's going to make this plane fly into space? 46 00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:55,920 The technology primarily is that this engine, because it doesn't have moving parts, it's 47 00:02:55,920 --> 00:03:00,760 designed to operate over a wide speed range, can actually fly theoretically up to 25 times 48 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:03,320 the speed of sound, which is orbital velocity. 49 00:03:03,320 --> 00:03:06,320 What we want to do with this vehicle is show that one of these engines actually works in 50 00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:08,680 flight, something that's never been done before. 51 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:12,400 So we're really excited about taking this to flight, show that it works, and then from 52 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:15,880 there go to bigger vehicles to show that we can actually make space access vehicles that 53 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:17,520 fly like airplanes. 54 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:21,740 The scramjet engine is very different from conventional rocket engines. 55 00:03:21,740 --> 00:03:26,440 In order to break free from the Earth's gravitational field, vehicles like the space shuttle use 56 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:30,720 a fuel mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to propel the vehicle forward. 57 00:03:30,720 --> 00:03:35,520 Unfortunately, the oxygen and hydrogen must be carried in the vehicle, which significantly 58 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:41,320 increases the weight, making it very expensive and inefficient to fly to space. 59 00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:45,920 Since the scramjet engine actually scoops oxygen into the engine from the atmosphere, 60 00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:49,620 it doesn't need the extra tanks to carry the heavy oxygen propellant. 61 00:03:49,620 --> 00:03:54,080 The scooped air, which is traveling above the speed of sound relative to the vehicle, 62 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:57,560 is heated up as it reaches the combustion section of the engine. 63 00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:01,400 It's then mixed with hydrogen and burned quickly to provide thrust. 64 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:06,600 This process allows the vehicle to move faster and faster, reaching orbital velocity, enabling 65 00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:10,800 the vehicle to break the gravitational fields and fly into space. 66 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:14,200 We have a long history here at NASA Langley of doing scramjet research. 67 00:04:14,760 --> 00:04:19,360 In fact, over the last 40 years, we've built and tested over 20 engines. 68 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:20,360 We've run 5,000 tests. 69 00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:24,240 If you ran these tests end-to-end, we would actually have enough test time to fly five 70 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:25,240 times around the globe. 71 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:29,080 Unfortunately, there are some things that we can't duplicate on the ground in a facility 72 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:31,400 such as this that we have to take to flight. 73 00:04:31,400 --> 00:04:34,920 So now, what we're ready to do is take engines such as this scramjet engine to flight. 74 00:04:34,920 --> 00:04:36,440 All right, and let me get this straight. 75 00:04:36,440 --> 00:04:39,680 The X-43 uses an air-breathing engine. 76 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:43,360 What makes it different from other vehicles that fly into space, like the space shuttle? 77 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:47,640 The space shuttle uses rocket engines, obviously, instead of an air-breathing engine. 78 00:04:47,640 --> 00:04:51,800 What we want to do is take the cost of the space shuttle, which is about $10,000 a pound 79 00:04:51,800 --> 00:04:57,360 today, and by using an air-breathing vehicle such as a follow-on to the X-43, drop that 80 00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:00,120 price down to a couple of hundred dollars a pound. 81 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:03,120 That would mean that you and I could take a space trip, something that I'd very much 82 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:04,120 like to do in the future. 83 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:09,200 It would also, by operating like an airplane, take off and land on a runway. 84 00:05:09,200 --> 00:05:13,800 It would be much more flexible, much more reliable, and obviously much safer. 85 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:18,720 So we want to really take airplane technology and apply it to space launch technology. 86 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:21,080 And the scramjet is kind of a mix of both. 87 00:05:21,080 --> 00:05:23,920 And we're very excited about the potential for the future and what we're about in this 88 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:27,560 program starting to prove that that potential is really there. 89 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:32,800 Vince, I know the X-43 is still in the initial test phase, but when might you and I expect 90 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:36,360 that we could actually hop on one of these planes and fly into space? 91 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:40,360 Tony, we have a lot of work to do before we get to that point. 92 00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:42,720 The X-43 is the first step. 93 00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:47,720 Beyond the X-43, we hope to have an X-43C, which would be slightly larger. 94 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:52,240 And then going from there into fully reusable systems, where we test them many, many times. 95 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:56,420 I would say that realistically, we're talking about being able to make a decision on building 96 00:05:56,420 --> 00:06:02,600 a real airplane using the scramjet technology in the 2025 timeframe. 97 00:06:02,840 --> 00:06:08,520 Currently, the world's fastest air-breathing aircraft, the SR-71, cruises slightly above Mach 3. 98 00:06:08,520 --> 00:06:12,840 The HyperX research vehicle will have the ability to fly at Mach 10, or 10 times the 99 00:06:12,840 --> 00:06:16,360 speed of sound, which is roughly 2 miles per second. 100 00:06:16,360 --> 00:06:20,480 Up next, testing shuttle tires at 250 miles an hour on the ground. 101 00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:27,280 But first, did you know that the X-15 was the first winged aircraft to investigate piloted hypersonic flight? 102 00:06:27,320 --> 00:06:36,920 From June 1959 to October 1968, the X-15 set the world speed record at Mach 6.7, or 4,520 miles per hour. 103 00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:42,920 It also set the altitude record of 354,200 feet and earned astronaut wings for five of its pilots.