Skip to main content

A new SST?





Japanese jet prototype to rival Concorde



It looks like a winged javelin and would zip along at twice the speed of sound, with the supersonic boom reduced to the tolerable rumble of a Boeing 747. It would go twice the distance of the Concorde, seat three times the passengers, and cut emissions by 75 percent.



Sound like science fiction? Japanese researchers say they're ready to prove it's not.
What with the Airbus A380 and the Boeing Sonic Cruiser, the commercial air industry is everything the space shuttle "industry" is not. That is, alive and well.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not the Hero We Deserve, But the Hero We Need

The Dark Knight is the best film I’ve seen in years. Not just the best “superhero” film, but the best film of any type. It’s not perfect, not quite a masterpiece, but it’s flaws are, to me, tiny and overwhelmed by the time the film ends. While relatively bloodless, it is consistently brutal, not just in what it depicts but in the themes that drive it. TDK is a film for adults, please leave the kids at home. Let’s deal with those “flaws” first, the largest being the character Rachel Dawes . In Batman Begins , I blamed Katie Holmes . Her acting was weak, to say the least, which is regrettable in that who she is and what she says and does are important to the film. Critics agreed and either for that or other reasons, Katie was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal , who is a better actress. Yet here she’s weak, real weak. Maybe it’s the character, not the actress, which is frustrating because Rachel is a pivotal character. The film,...
1 comment
Read more

DVD: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Awful. The film is an environmentalist wacko wet dream. No one else could like this thing. I’m trying to think of something positive and all I can come up with is how positively awful it is. The original The Day the Earth Stood Still is a science fiction masterpiece. In it, Klaatu comes to Earth with a simple message: Do what you want among yourselves and on your planet. But if you attempt to export your violent way to the stars, Gort and his friends will hit you with so many lefts you’ll beg for a right. (Gort being the cosmic version of Chuck Norris, you see.) The ultimate warning was that we needed to change our violent ways if we expected to be accepted among the stars. In this remake, the aliens are environmental busy-bodies who have bought into the entire notion that we puny little humans are capable of destroying the planet. Therefore, we must be eliminated so that the planet, for God knows what reason, can try again. To count the ways in which this film makes no sense ...
1 comment
Read more

Rogan

The entire Joe Rogan controversy is an example of the kids being left in charge and the adults refusing to teach them any better. I’m not a regular consumer of podcasts. There are a couple I listen to from time to time, but nothing on a regular basis. While I’ve caught a few minutes of the Joe Rogan Experience on YouTube, I’ve never listened to his podcast. One of the primary reasons for that is that you have to subscribe to Spotify to do so, and I prefer Qobuz, Tidal, or even Amazon Music. Rogan is behind Spotify’s paywall and that’s that. But the nature of the fight is about more than who does or does not listen to Rogan. This fight goes to the very nature of the First Amendment and the fundamental concept of the United States. And yes, I understand that cuts both ways. What’s his name and Joni Mitchell are free to yank their creations from Spotify, no ifs, ands, or buts. I’m not denying their right, I’m questioning their reasons. Rogan talks to people. He does so largely unfiltered....
Post a Comment
Read more