Check 6 Revisits: Hypersonic Hopes—The Legacy Of The X-30 Orient Express
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Welcome to check six three visits where we come through more than a century of aviation week and space technology archives. On this podcast, our editors explore pivotal industry moments and achievements of the past while considering how they might relate to the events today.

This nation remains fully committed to american space program. We are going forward with our shuttle flights. We are going forward to build our space station, and we are going forward with research on a new orient express that couldn't, by the end of the next decade, take off from dev az airport, accelerate up to twenty five times the speed of sound, obtaining low earth orbit are flying to tokyo within two hours.

On your host Christine voyant, in aviation week, senior editor for air transport and you've just heard president ronal bragin describe his vision for a mock twenty five airliner during his thousand nine hundred and eighty six state of the union address, the rock well x thirty national ero spaced plane, or nsp. IT was an ambitious vision, and not without its critics in his memory.

Former director of lucky's suncor's spend rich would have a fairly brutal assessment of the speech he writes. In part, reagan called the hyper yc onic plane the origin expressed because IT would fly from new york to tokyo and only two hours. Regan wanted to build IT in forty eight years.

He'd be lucky to do IT in fifty. I was outraged by that speech, not the president, but at his technical team, which apparently had sold him a hypersonic version of the broker in bridge. So on that note, let's jump in and here with me today to dissect this topic.

Our aviation week executive editor, gram more, week senior editor guy north and special gas doctor mark Lewis, chief executive officer for their purdue applied research institute and former chief scientist of the U. S. Air force. Thanks for being with us here today. Doctor Lewis.

driving me before .

we get to reactions. I want we've just heard. I wonder if we can start.

Guy, can you give us some context on this program as the dream of hypersonic flight became more and more prominent, this was really the focus for all the U. S. Efforts at the time as they were working to stay head of the competition. Is that right?

IT was A A A A very sort of uh, interested in time because obviously, uh, as we know the the dream of high speed flight had never been far from the agenda. IT was just a question of how to get there. You've got to sort of put yourself in the perspective of where things were in the late seventies and early eighties.

The strategic defense initiative have just sort of been launched in eighty three by president reagan. And there was this at the same time matter, of course, who was flying the space shuttle for the first time. And there was sort of two real competing ways of of of getting into space, and this idea of actually a rocket powered propelling, you know, getting IT to space with rockets.

Or could you use an everything system of the dream that had been around since the end of world war too? Essentially thanks to people like antonio ferry, who was this pioneer, really the sort of one of the originals of brain. So you get to the late seventies and the and the early eighties, and the air force begins to see that the shut is not really their baby after all.

You know, they they don't have any control really over IT and they would like to use IT. And so out of nowhere really maybe well, we can talk to the doctor Lewis about this but um I have nowhere really seems to come this idea of of this single stage to all the dream that you can actually do IT with every everything hypersonic propulsion systems. It's not like the stuff of of dreams really and uh and that there was the dark in other defense advanced research projects agency really talked them in to this this idea of this cop canyon project.

This was a way of sort of delivering this hypersonic, a single stage to orbit type capability to the air force. They wouldn't have to worry about rockets and the shuttle. They could do IT their own way. And so this cop canyon project really was the sort of the genesis of what to became dressed up as a civil project in some ways, the orient express, maybe what we can go from there.

Yeah, well, I think i'm going to pick up on something you said where you said out of nowhere. So doctor Lewis, over your career, you've LED efforts on hyper ysp ic research and development as one of the world's leading experts. Can you kind of bring our listeners back a bit further before that speech and pick us up on that point? What were the origins of this project and .

what had LED up to IT? sure. So the nature space play actually wasn't the first attempt building, or or thinking about building in the air breeding single stage orbit vehicle. The magical airplane that takes off running runway flies up the space dozen mission, comes back in lands a guy point.

And now that I was, people talking about this, actually back in the thousand and fifteen, when I was airport to have scientists, I found a document from the organza became the air force research laboratory. They are evaluating approaches to get in the space. And some researcher, I don't know, know who had written in the margins.

Next, system concepts for for a rocket systems, anything without wings and jet engines? S is a stunt. So so that was the idea. You think about how, you know, we were evolving our our experimental planes, uh, going fast.

You mark one and mark two, we had the x fifteen IT just seems what we were doing, the steady progression of faster and faster airplanes that would that that would ultimately lead into the face vehicles. There was even a movie in the thousand nine hundred and sixties about the x fifteen rocket plan program. And at the end of the program, they they have an orbar flight, which of course could get sto the overall speed.

But that was thinking and of course was was also work going back to the nineteen uh, late nineteen fifties and the sort of propulsion systems, the jet engines that would allow us to fly at very high speeds. The idea the the the engine, we think is the engine of choice for the speed range, the the supermarket of combusting RAM ject that dates back the one thousand nine hundred fifties. So so it's not a new idea, but oh my god, talk about the overly optimistic exception associated with nsp.

So a february one thousand nine hundred eighty six issue of aviation, we can space technology. That point time, we report that the technology development phase would start later that year, involving areas such as proportion in aircraft design necessary to build an experimental flight research vehicle engine modules. Les were set to be built in win tangle tested at speeds about mock eight. So, uh, sort of tossing him back to the group here for some reactions to both. We heard of the very beginning regan announcing this vision and then marches, very Frank assessment of his timeline your thoughts here of of .

richest words yeah, you know I suppose i'm a technology optimist. So you know, I was covering exert from the U. K.

In the in the early days and i'm also a bit of a cancelled project geek, so I collect all this stuff about aircraft projects that never came into reality. And to be honest, the the seventies, the eighties were just like technology madness. When I came to to aviation thick in the U.

S. Uh, you know and we went through some quite extraordinary projects that we convince ed ourselves will going to to make sense. You know, we had, we had a whole series of sort of mark three.

We had the X, P, seventy boma. We had the X, F, one of way fighter. We had the X, F, one of three, the republic, which was the most extraordinary looking airplane you ve ever seen.

And they all, you know, h, the exempt flu, but the others never even got off the drawing board. And IT was just this sort of belief that everything, anything and everything was possible. I mean, I would love to add up how much money the U.

S. And on all those programs that never came to anything in that time. So expert just seemed to be IT. IT seemed incredibly ambitious, and we didn't really know where the technology was coming from to make IT work.

But IT is kind of fitted with the the attitude of the industry, the time and and particularly in the hype up by the cold war, uh, technological what if we want to call IT? IT seemed okay. Fair enough.

You know here we go again. Um I I want to just I just want to say that uh a little personal. I moved to the U S.

In in ninety one and lived in atlantic. And not long after I moved to atlanta, I went to chat uga, tennessee for an A I W A era space page conference. And I thought I was so cool. I was a conference called every facebook. Now I think that was right about the time when x thirty was heading at a towards a brick wall, enormous speed. But I think it's the technologically gibran ambition over winning, whatever the word is, was not out of keeping with the way that we were thinking about every we just saw everything was possible about them.

Well, and what were the ultimate goal of this program? Because I could have satisfied many different constitutes, right, maybe starting initially with military applications onwards from there, breakfast in new york and lunch in tokyo. O, I think was one phrase. We wrote one of the past articles. So what were the goals?

I think I mention this, i'll hand back over to tomorrow. But this always been this absolute like that. In the north star of the space industry a single stage to orbit I mean IT was IT was behind the um uh the D C X uh which which of of course you know LED ultimately to inform space x and it's reusable technology but there were tons of them.

I remember I A huge, when I, you know, living back in the U. K. At the massive file of just single stage to orbit projects that are gearing on and and so but they were all incredibly brute force.

I mean, so that would like this, join tonics to like dozens and dozens and dozens of engines to get these things in the all. But and then along came this really quite attractive, very elegant looking solution to the problem. And we all went, oh, that's cool. Not really thinking that yet cool, but it's completely in practical.

Yeah, one of the sort of documents that i've been looking at was A A broken from mcDonald Douglas in one thousand and eighty six and IT was really laying out.

So where they were where they thought they were going at that stage with with this vehicle and it's scream says is extraordinary that was IT was huge, you know, already by them IT was they d sketched out out of three hundred and five passenger aircraft take off growth weight of five hundred and thirty thousand pounds, of which two hundred and twenty five thousand pounds was me liquid mEthane, which was their preferred option over liquid hydrogen. IT was one hundred and six feet span, two hundred and twenty, two hundred and fifty feet long. So about the same sort of size as a triple seven, three hundred.

Oh, and by the way, I was meant to go between mark five and mark five point five. Uh, just and what sort of strikes me about this thing is this was obviously very sharp. Out there was an eighty degree sweet bal.

This thing looked amazing. I looked so cool. But I just can't imagine anybody in the.

In their right mind thinking that I could possibly work, especially when you think about the low speed environment, you know handling this thing on approach coming into L X or over the traffic pattern or take off, I mean, just extraordinary and maybe get IT in to low though bit, if you can. But this thing was, I I know what were they thinking, you know, was great. But what were they thinking, you know?

And I that was actually the conservative version because, as you say, was a mock five airplay was going to be much twenty five. So so oh my god, I talk about optimistic zob ance and and you know you point out the the size of the airplane. So you may recall the original design for the national airspace plan and and IT was IT was a project that I was that was pitched by gentleman name tony dupin. And his airplane was, can be thirty thousand pounds. And by the time they cancel the next program, IT was like in the five hundred thousand thousand category and the deep car cigarettes, there was no way I was ever going to the design would never great gram I I was at that nineteen ninety one uh conference in chat nega I remember like I was yesterday um and and and you're right, I was kind of as as things were winding down because I think everyone was realizing this thing is going to require a few miracles going to .

the thing that struck me when I go back and think about a was in chat uga for which kind of like surprises me like you secondary. Everybody I met there, I continued to meet in the decades that followed because x thirty was what created the hypersonic experience expertise base that we continue to draw.

You know, and I remember many, many years later, one of my most favorite visits was going down to the hypersonic wind tunnel at NASA li and going inside the tunnel, which is quite exordium ence, because it's like being inside a warhead of IT. It's exploded because IT has a smell of sort of like, you know, gun powdery type is not last as they flood IT with this, you know, high, high temperature air to get that to simulate the, the, the, the flight conditions. But IT makes the whole place smell weird.

And because you have this big copper engine that was sitting in the middle of IT. And but the people that were there are taking me around word people i'd made like ninety, ninety one. yeah. So I i've .

often you know i've often heard the discussion about what did we get from the mask program. And you know, I think in the positive column, I mean, we spent a lot of money at an airplane. But in the puzzle of column, I think we can we can trace everything we're doing today in hypersonic s to the next program, I mean, to create a whole generation of of engineers who airspace engineers focus on hypersonic s. If you look at the a you know, all the, the, the, the senior folks working in the field today, we all junior engineers working on the national airspace plan. So so i'll i'll give the program 快点 for I .

think that's a great point。 And before I when I come back to that a minute, but before we get there, you know we've mentioned weight. We've talked about that as being one of them, the major chAllenges this was also going to require in entirely new base of materials, right? A K doctor Lewis, kind of jump in here and walk us through some of the engineering chAllenges that were achieved in what some of those initial main stumbling blocks where there may be in addition to the weight.

sure. Well, how much time do we have in this podcast? The engineering chAllenges were amazing, but is actually start with the engine, right? So it's going to be an airbase engine and engine that uses the oyster from the atmosphere to order, get up to ordinal speed, you have to be travelling in about twenty five times to speed the sound.

great. The engineer that was going to do that, the super, super combusting RAM jet, had never, ever been flown. And in fact, we didn't fly a supersonic combustion RAM jet until arguably wealth you if you create the australians in two thousand and two, if you create another, it's two thousand and four.

But many years after the cancellation, this program, and to this day, the best of the maxim speed we ve ever gotten out of a scrap engine is about ten times the speed sound. So no, were closed at twenty five times the speed sound. And I like to argue that the chAllenge, the the, the, the difficulty, uh, scales with the cuba of velocity is power scales with cuba veloso.

So mark twenty five, is there a lot of a lot more difficult than mark ten changes them? One, we didn't have to build the engine. In fact, we didn't. Even if you could build the engine.

And there are questions about, could you inject the people? Could you mix IT? Could you get the burner, the joke, the fuel would be burning somewhere over new york while the airplane was over california.

So that problem, problem number two is the fuel. So do you get the mass fraction of the vehicle? I mean, especially was a flying fuel tank. And the fuel of choice was hydrogen because that's the only thing we thought could burn IT. You could could power the vehicle all the way of the mock scale.

While hydrogen stores is a very, very low density liquid, which means you get ta hydrogen attack is really big, which means the structure, the airplane is really big, and that's bad. So there is a major effort to try to densify the hyder gen, including doing using what was called slush hyder gen. So slush hyder gen, basically you have A A semi solid versions of hydrogen.

We had no idea how to do that. We had no idea how to store IT. So we didn't have to didn't have to do the engine, didn't have to do the fuel. Then there are all the issues of how you integrate the engine on the air frame and what the thing would look like. Um we totally knew had a built and that would fly at hypersonic speeds, but we won't sure if we could ever get off the ground.

There were some model that suggested that only the shapes of the next vehicle could never take off that we there was the running show that you can to show IT off a Cliff, find a really high Cliff. You build a rn. A Cliff often let IT pick up the city. Oh my god, somebody things wrong.

Um I point out one of the problem with the national program and and IT was actually contained in you can hear you can hear this issue in present reagan's own speech because he talks about a vehicle that was gonna, although at the space or fly from the talking in two hours. But the problem is those are actually very different vehicles once an accelerator one's a cruise. Er so figuring out what the mission of this vehicle was going to be was kind of important and we never quite got there. So by november .

one thousand nine hundred and eighty nine, I just another piece for our archives, things were still relatively optimistic. Um we reported the time that the era of hypersonic flight was ready to begin. Six nations were working on aircraft designed to cruse at speeds over mock five and the us was leading the way with the x thirty. But there was a decision coming up right of a no a go no go decision due to be I thinking about nineteen ninety um with light testing about ninety four and ninety five and potentially to enter service in two thousand. So can we walk through the final chapter of this program?

What brought to end basically last went long to about almost ninety three three. But you know, even by the the time for him, your quoting even by the late dates, I mean, IT was pretty obvious that this vehicles was just a bridge too far. Um there is a joke that any any error space problem that requires more than one miracle is not onna happen with as he needed like a whole budget of miracles.

And I I think the community was realizing that. But you know maybe a bit later we can talk about the legacy of nas, but nas didn't die completely. And in fact, you can trace most of what we're doing today in hyper sonics to technology.

IT was developed from this and including super cent of conduction RAM ject. So all the hypercard Christmas will work that you hear on on going today that all traces back to the next gram. Um much of the ordnance ics traces back to the nass program.

Um even our understanding and you know I talk about some the chAllenges of fuel, 所以 为 our understanding of of how you use fuels， how how you ject fuel on the engine. But more importantly, the best fuel is that that really traces back to knowledge. We got the next program.

and I was started looking at somebody you mentioned tony to on mark as well. And the fact that this the idea of this hypo ic research engine that he had pion ed in the sixties as well, which was very much one of the early kernel s of mass as well, one of the sort of seed project even though you know I guess the the appetite for um for hypersonic research sort of came and when then, depending on budget, some I think in the by the late sixties with the view and more and in Apollo taking out all of that is money.

There was you know they didn't want to continue this H R work that had been begun with tony depth engine but he is the one that seems to to come back and back through this story, always wanting to push the push IT back and and he was the one I think you actually came up with a tiny little model of the original as wasn't and shift across the table uh when they when the the asa team met with the uh who was the a defense secretary caswin burger and he said I think somebody said at the time that little needle shape to object was so sharp when he shot the model across the table at almost pierce casper wine book but but you know I kind of love the idea that so one of the one of the thoughts I had was when they tested this model, uh, this model engine, hypersonic research engine, IT was like a irregular engine that we would see today in a sort of in the cell round IT that was IT was a metric and and of course, IT was only through all of this sort of research that everybody began to realize that when you're talking about hypothesis ics, you have to integrate frame and propulsion system as one that you can't have things hanging off the end. I mean, I remember when they eventually persuaded nothing to fly the a model of the H R E engine under the x fifteen IT burns off because of air, and i'm eating, but through the bloody oon. They lost IT ably still still somewhere out over the move.

Does that are they recover the desert? Yeah there is a gentleman name of john y. Armstrong who legend out IT at IT at a uh right patter at at the ever therefore ce, and as a Young engineer, he figured out where when he melt IT IT off the x fifteen, he figured out where would have london and they went out the deep and her level is right where Johnson said that .

would be so can I just draw a thread between between what mark said and what guys said there? Because because um mark talked about how x never really entirely finished and guy talked about this on off thing that the U. S.

Has done with hypothenuse s, which is which is the if is the single greatest thing two things that define the U. S. And hypothesis is, one is over.

Ambition to is under achievement. Because because the U. S. Could never. I talk about attention span.

This is worse than your teenage sun in the basement. With this, with this game. Boy, whatever does that mean the U. S.

Would go for about five, six, seven, eight years and then just achieve something, and then just go a and usually IT was because the the customer, the end customer who was usually in the military, I hadn't didn't know anything that was going on in the research community because they don't they didn't read the right, they didn't read aviation way or they didn't see in need for IT because there wasn't a threat they could address with hysan. So right, well, as we will know, that all change. But back then, there was this, there was this technology push, no requirement.

So what you see is this kind of sign wave of hypersonic, where x thirty peaks and declines. Then we get same technology, almost exactly the same flow path. We get the S H forty three a. And then that peaks that was supposed to be a 4b was supposed to be forty three c never happened。

We go down the slope again, and then we come back up the slope with the, with the A F old doctor, or the F R L X fifty one, a boing F R L, in the end of very successful gram ja engine demonstration with the same flow path, essentially a model of one of the engine modules from the x third place so going for the bratton in your rocket down um and forgive me, guy, if I get any of these details wrong but but they flew that x fifty one. However, times IT was, they got to mark five something around that with fifty one success. right? And we were supposed to go into that was a demonstrator.

We were supposed to then go into a missioned version of the x fifty one, which would have taken everything we learned with the demonstrator packaged into a missile. And what happen we can? We put a skies on ski down slope we live in. And again, yeah.

you you you are absolutely a hundred percent right. And and you know the x forty talking about the policy. So x forty three was based on a concept vehicle song's called the dual fuel hypersonic vehicle.

A, for a hyperon of vehicles. Ly, anywhere around the globe do a flow fuel because you flow on a hydrogen. E, you came back on jet fuel, which was, dr that don't get you started, but I was actually derived from the nass configure.

So if you trace the history of x forty three, IT was a nice configuration by the way. Um we're just the twenty of anniversary of the four of of x forty three market, ten fes exact one you're exactly spotted on. Now here's the thing that really tells me about all this.

So I I was just just talking some friends over the weekend about the being at the the last fight, the exporting three and IT was the most remarkable experience because you here, you had a team of engineers who pulled off an incredible accomplishment, and they flew an everything jet parade vehicle and almost ten times to speed the sound. And they were the most depressed group of people you've ever seen because the person was being cancelled and they were being scattered red to the four winds. IT was IT was IT was a name.

And then as you point out, we had exactly with next fifty one. So you know, next fifty one, we had four flight. First one was most successful.

Second and third were not. Fourth flight was one hundred percent successful. And then what did we do? nothing. And and the kicker on this is, you know, you look at the total cost of next, if you want to came in, and about three hundred million dollars at the time. And I think the numbers are roughly about prime.

Each additional flight would have been about another eleven million dollars, right? So I talk about hy wise pound foolish. You make this big investment, you build this program IT all works.

And what do you do instead, instead of continue to fly and expand out the end globe? No, we stopped and and our argument and try to move on to something else. Remember the dark of black swift for program. So that was, that was gonna low on the x fifty one, instead of flushing out the the light test on blood. So yeah, we makes some really bad decision here.

I think one of things is marked the hype U. S. Hypothesis ics.

right? I could be very carefully about the U. S. Hypothesis ics is is because we are early in the days of hypothalamic. We still so much, we don't know.

We've not done any stain flying a high speed, not not any movers at high speed. We don't know half of the things you need to present, things we need to know to make a successful vehicle. But hyper sonics is a field.

Well is always something Better just around the corner. And it's on, unfortunately, a very U. S. Approach where we go, oh yeah, that work. But yeah, a look, if we do this, if we go from that square scrounging to a round scrounging and streamline, uh, whatever we can get here. But we still don't know what happens at my five.

If we watch, if we try to talk to the missile or some these all, you know, how do we get seeker on to something doing market or something, these basic things we don't know. And we're always going, oh, blue. If we just do this, we can go where is you know I mean, one of things I was so it's really intriguing as is that if you because you took a lot of stick when I was finally realized that had fAllen behind the rest of the world inhabits on its I E.

We didn't have a deployable weapon in china and russia did. China, russia, in essence, took a great force approach, right? So, so, so they just they just took a rocket and put a glide on IT.

And they and they push the guide to the high speed, perfect, good way of doing to very sort of like aggressive, offensive, but relievedly simple weapon system. The U. S.

Always wanted to do something else. And I mark up, talk you about this. When we started the early days of of what became hall and arrow and all those other programs, the U.

S. Wanted a flexible tactical air launch weapon the U. S, at any point, involves.

In fact, they did Sandy to demonstrate this. The U. S.

Could have put a little on on a missile boost up and had a weapon in service at any time. In the last twenty years, we had all pieces. We had the same dear glider we had.

We have boost us up the with zoo. But we always had this idea of or no, we wanted put this on A B two or A B one. And we all up fifty.

And we wanted IT to be because that's the way the U. S. Operate. U S. Doesn't really field simple threatening up yours weapons. I mean, it's always got a cons of concept Operations and and a techs desire for teaching flexibility, which cause drives you to these to these weapons systems that get increasingly complex. Exceptions were not doing the research to support the so I might the .

one I might disagree you I I think you actually have to dry distinction between what the russians do and what the chinese do. So the russians, indeed, brute force, in fact, lot of IT is just called world legacy. They had programs that we're sitting on the shelf for a while and they restarted.

If you look at the the hypersonic missiles they've been using in the ukraine, enough to creep impressive. That basic took second that was launched in the ground and made in the air launch system. And so but the chinese are I think you're different.

The chinese have been flushing out technology. Um they read all the U S. papers. I mean they saw the us. Programs um and and they have A A pretty broad range of hypersonic systems.

So so so agree with the in part I I I i'm going part the blame actually the personal blame for the emphasis and systems. By way, i've been a huge you know I think that's one of the killer applications for hypersonic s. But even there, you know, as you point now, so starting with next fifty one, we had this beautiful path to an air launched hypersonic system.

And there are lot of reasons, I think, that you go to the air launch systems, a lot of reasons you want to flights ing in the bombay of A B fifty two, there are less expensive, the package Better, you can build more than, you can launch more than. I'm not journal a fan of the fifty main dollar around hypersonic systems. They have their applications.

But if I can do a million dollar, even a two million dollar around hypersonic system, I think i've got a i've got a weapon that that's Frankly just just more correctable. But even there, we just haven't been consistent. So you know, after we flew X, D one dark, a picked up the hawk program.

And how, you know was the obvious technological successor to x fifty one. But instead of building on what we had done the next fifty one, we also started over again. And and I know I I I don't blame darpa for that so much as the nature of darpa is no darpa.

Doesn't we do someone else's technology? Darpa exist to do, you know, technology to to to to to do far reaching technology, to do more, Better technology. So as soon as we gave the program, as soon as we gave responsibility for building an air breathing hypersonic weapon over the dark, it's no surprise that they didn't build on what we done. And if they kind of started all over again, and the result is it's more than decade gap between the first flight of flight of fifty one and the first flight of a hot messing.

I think that sort of the the issue really isn't that if this stop start thing that we've discussed is that the the poll has never been strong enough to put pull IT over that kind of transitional, that the valley y of death kind of idea that everybody talks about in. In the development world. And yet every single time there's a new there's a new hypothesis ic project sort of emerging on the other side of that gap.

Make me, for example, what dark is now looking at the next generation responsible strike, the next stores programme, which are colleague Steve trembles written recently about um you know so the dream of vex thirty still have all in a way there's always gotten be somebody out there say, no, we've gotta have this. So even if it's not single stage to orbit, it's gonna A A cruise hypersonic vehicle um and again, down but in looking at the at the hole that you mention this, well, mark, they've now got the model kind of more opportunities for hook. So so there's this sort of continual everybody still wants to have an everything hypersonic system, you know, because china, russia is very mentioned, you know, so taken essentially you know, other recombination of break force and china a bit more nuance with more everything aspect, but essentially IT almost seems as if they're still waiting for the U. S. To come up with the next .

great idea well, except, you know, my i'm to tip my hat to the chinese researchers because you know, for while, yeah, they were pretty much mimicking what we are doing in the U. S. But theyve come up with some pretty, pretty interesting stuff on their own.

And they don't suffer from from the phenomenon gram that you point out. They don't have this start stop. Um I I I guess it's one of the advantages of being in .

order craic dictor ship. Yeah I think I think that's right. And and you know when IT became clear, guys guys stories that came in in a view, when I came clear that the U. S. Was at least that risk of music is five positions, several things came out of that one.

Is that clearly all the work that we have done on x thirty, x forty three, x fifty one, a lot of IT weight to the public domain and gave the chinese a leg up. I mean, they didn't start from scratch with this. They took everything that was out there in public to me.

But because of the autocratic regime thing, they invested heavily in infrastructure. Because to be on this, if you really look at the history of U. S.

Hypo sonics, that's been one of the bottle nexis is you have to get the flight to test hysan ics because we don't really have the ability to test you on the ground. And and if we do, we only contest IT on the ground that are some sort of small of scale. And the real thing we want to do, china put a huge investment into ground infrastructure of test instructions.

And also, if you quite rightly point out, they have flown and flown and flown. They just don't have this, but we've achieved to take that box. Oh, the customer is an interest because he want to buy a tanker or he wants to buy a you know, he wants to buy a bigger ship or something like that.

You and and nothing waving the appropriate saw at him that he needs to respond to. Um the chinese just have this different approach um to to to tackle in these issues and and even now that the U S hasn't understanding of what hysan ic the U S. Military from a threat basis and therefore we need to respond.

We still not seeing the U. S. Really get a pace to IT. You know that we'd still seeing this incredible delay between you fly something in either work so IT doesn't and any we go through endless english analytic stem, whatever.

And then maybe we go fly again, but it's like a year or tears or something. We're still not getting any sort of pace of consistency to push the technology forward. OK.

what do you think about this?

Just going to say, gram raises a great point there. So much of what we've sort of seen as a sort of button of test infrastructure. And mark, I was there in the twenty years ago what was and dried and I guess I D was there for space uh witnessing that that for the x forty three flight, which reached the record speed um and members half the battle was just getting to the test condition with the b fifty two and making sure the b two was working and that they could get the range conditions and everything had to lie up like the the pieces of cheese and in an accident almost IT was like a one off and the same thing happened to next fifty one as you you quite as you remember that was that was such a big part of the of the whole equation.

But I think one of the legacies of kind of looking down the road of if you trace all that back to master is also the fact that you know now you've got this new generation of like strate launch, for example, out there, which is dedicating two in the talon as a build, launching a hypersonic test vehicle for the industry and for the services. Um you know you've got uh you know her miss, for example, you know coming up with sort of their self, but in A T B C C powered vehicles. So going to go this new way of of different approach, as I suppose, to the problem. And in the next year, we should see the haste mission, I think, hypersonic accelerator sober bittle test electron mission um which will launch this the australian the hypersonic s start scram jet powered vehicle.

So and if you kind .

of really look down into the roots of IT, all that still is kind of producing you know where all decades later, this was still looking at some of the result.

something no, I think I think that the right and you know especially the grams point. So one of things that happened and me we allow our infrastructure to to uh uh to win um and and you know win totals but also are built, you know gram plays out our builder to flight test. Um so so I think there's actually there's kind of a good news story there.

And the good news stories, do you look in the past few years, you've had a number of organizations that have recognize all the the the chAllenges we have with infrastructure and trying to rebuild that. So in the pentagon, you ve got to test with source management center LED LED by judge rumford and hypersonic deputy of jeff Wilson. They are they're investing heavily into new ground test facilities, but also flight test get buildings with mark.

T B. You know you mention thread, so is closure. I I am on the advisory board for for statal launch, but it's it's a much neither concept. The idea is to build a hyper YSL icc vehicle that can enter the hypersonic flight regime not once a year but in principal, you know hopefully on almost weekly basis kind of reliving the the days of the x fifteen um be the the number of wind tunnels that are there are being built.

Um you know my day rabbit puro um we've got A A win on all the dates back to the nineteen sixties from NASA um that we just we rededicate a refurbished rebuild is in a state of the art facility uh other universities as well as stepping up no dame as as as just created a new I speed one turn l texas cnm other organizations in my mind the question is in the question I keep getting asked. Okay, we're interesting in this is a different this time. Are we are we going to see that slow? And by god, I hope that and I don't say don't think so because you know we have countries like russia and china that have already gone to employment. So so um I I think we've got in the wake up wake up call so that wake up .

call in this moments, doctor, that was what's going to be possible over the next couple of decades. Best case in where do you see a heading?

So look, I think and i'm also gna created as a legacy of mass, so I really do think common heads of prevail, right? No one is talking about mark twenty five gram jets, but mark five, yeah, we know how to do that. And mark six, and maybe mark seven, I think IT is also, and this is a recognition coming at our mask.

The first applications are our military applications as much as I would love to fly on a mock six jet liner, it's going to take me from dollars airport to sydney, australia in a couple hours. Oh my god, that would be the ultimate dreams. The reality is the the first missions are clean military missions, and they start with the weapons applications.

So if you extract from where we are now to where where we will be, I, I i'm pretty certain we're see the continued advancement of our weapons systems hopefully at a faster pace. And we were we were on pace to be delay hypersonic weapons for the for in the U S. Side um by the end of twenty twenty three.

I don't think we made that deadline. I haven't shaked lately, but only we made that deadline. But I think you certain ly you're going to see the first the first development of U S.

Hypersonic c weapons. Um I think the question man becomes are we do we continue to be um dedicated in that? Do we do we continue to be committed to to rolling out our hersant ic weapons?

I don't know the answer to that. I think the answer should be yes. I think he has to be yes.

But we'll see what we've got a new team coming into the pentagon. You've got a new national leadership team. Will I see we will see what happens.

Certainly when you look at the past? no. I think one of the things, as mark has mentioned, is the fact that you know there's a more of A I think more of a realism uh, you would hope um i'm looking back at in one thousand and eighty six, they thought uh x thirty would cost one or three point one billion. The flight tests, as you mentioned, Christine, starting in the mid of nineties, but by the time they ve got to the midnight, in fact by eighty three theyve with the cost estimated cost of britain to fifty billion and first flight i'd hoped and slide to twenty two thousand and four um so by the time that was actually cancelled, I think IT was specifically in ninety three, maybe marketing IT was five point five billion, roughly already been spent. But but I think you know the lesson learned there is the fact that, uh you know the there does seem to be the lesson of history and that realism has craps perhaps back into the into the at least they sort of at least now all of these projects A A M in by actual flight test and results of what what is capable, as you mention. Mark five, mark seven, no, we know that good and doable.

I laugh because you know talking about Price tag. So so the the much machine black swift program, which in my inner actually deserves to be machined, but. I was being pitched to us, so I was, I was done on the earth day of the time.

And darker was pitching IT as a seven hundred and fifty million dollar airplane. And half was gonna air force, half was is going to be darpa. And by the way, I often cleaned.

And after that, that was in in the middle of the x fifty one program. For that same seven hundred fifty men, I can have flown about seventy x fifty one vehicles. Think about expanding the flight on blood, but I digress.

And there is a very famous meeting with the then airport research lab commander with the head of darkness. And the lab commander basically told the head of dark pa, with the biggest problem, this program is dark, is gonna in your health. Then the air force will put in our half and another half and another half and another half and another half.

In no way we are going to be able to build Better plane for seven hundred and fifty million. And by the way, that was their plane that was gna take off for, anyway, accelerate to mot six, do a barrel fly for about sixty seconds. And then IT wasn't clear you could continue find the airplane because the airframe might no longer be air worthy. There was, there was some debate about that.

So in a kind of ground point about this, the, the, the always pursuing the next shiny thing um oh my god that program example fies IT but bottom line, you know you say what what's the cost of a hypersonic bo um funny incident when when that black sweet program was kicking in, I was in my pentagon office and I get a first call from one of the air forces, uh, four star generals and he basically called me up to yellow at me and the reason was yelling at me was because black was a hypersonic vehicle he assumed I was the one behind and and he start economy is where's your integrity? There's no way we can build this for seven hundred and fifty. And like way, way, I agree.

And then and at the time we talk about what I would cost that airplane and our best estimate the time was probably about four billion. And that was for the airplane that flew to mock sex, did a barrow role and then came back and landed. So you put that perspective, a walk, twenty five airplane flying up, up, flying at this space. Yeah, you've lucky to do that for fifteen billion.

Well, that calls talking about access to space because he's another way at lesson learn or emerging result out of a nass when in a house failed uh because the as we've said, the S S T O single stage to a bit dream has never really gone away um but the uh strategic defense and up office S D I O then so well let's go back to the tried trust rocket approach and of course that the that gave birth to the mcDonald ouk S D C X which which I think great mentioned there.

They're as well a vertical for those that don't do know that was a vertical take off and landing a rocket demonstrator that actually proved that you could do that. And of course, hey presto, in a two decades later, we've got some SpaceX folk on nice landing pretty routinely exactly using that kind of basic h that concept. So that's another strange legacy of of naspers is one of space ex is great technologies hoping that .

hikes on to Christians uh, question about, you know where do we go from here? I'm kind of hoping that the reason aware do we go from here. I want this to continue because I want excuse to go back to chat uga.

So you know, it's funny. I I I have a conversation to the about every breathing proportion and he had that's a really just so ever. But for space, he he may very well be well, at least for the foreseeable future. He may. I will be right.

Well, we are approaching the end over hour. So I guess i'll just open IT up to any final thoughts, optimistic, pessimistic, somewhere in between of where we go from here for the stream of hypersonic flight.

I think I just i'll just put my six pilots in the year of IT. It's clear from this conversation that the next thirty as a program was a failure, but it's as a as a generator of technology that then kept us busy for you know decades after as not just us but the chinese get the chinese busy. Decades of IT was extraordinary effort.

And and I thinking in the end, what what came out of x thirty was a whole bunch of people with unique experience, unique understanding and those same people play continue to play a role in everything that follows those. That experience that was built in next thirty and before IT in in some ways before of IT in in next fifteen is why we are where we are today. You know, I mean, we made the best years of IT, but but we've been able to use we've made we've been able to make because of the people that worked on next thirty .

yeah and just following up from that, I mean, oba sly, I think x thirty was the platform upon which really every single stepping stone, including, for example, the as I mentioned early, the earth propulsion system integration approach, which really was, you know, again came out of the the idea of using the frame itself is for compression and and as part of the inlets and the and and the the nosal. You know that's another and is a sort of there are hallMarks of every single or basically every single everyday thing hypersonic approach since so that the roots of mass by thing will be continue to be A A force for forever, really in the history of hyper sonics.

If I could put a very personal spin on IT. So I was a when the next problem began, I was a graduate student and IT working the gas to my lab, working in gas turbine engines. And there are some fascinating, fascinating problems assisted with gas term engine.

You IT IT really is chAllenges, is an area nomics and thermal ics. And I was bored silly. And the reason I was bored as, I mean, the technology, you can walk to a gas, my engine store and buy a gas, my engine, everything we work.

You are trying to make a little bit more efficient, little bit more fuel efficient. But I really wasn't pushing the flight on lob. And then this last program gets announce and I started to work.

My P. H. D. Theses was assess with the last vehicle IT was such a heady, exciting time. The dream is vehicle IT was just amazing.

Um i've spent now almost about forty years working in hypersonic because I started when I was five years old and IT was all because of mask. I mean, if not for nasby, I still be trying to figure out he transferred the turbine blades and nothing there's anything wrong with that. And and i'm not alone in that.

I mean, you as both gun and great point in there's this whole generation of engineers, we all got our start with this dream of building this hypersonic vehicle. So I I put in the category of a very, very noble failure and one that that really has gotten this the point where we are today, where where we are seeing practical hypersonic systems being built, utilize, deployed. So that's that's a pretty good legacy.

Well, that is a rap for this episode of check six three visits. A special thanks to doctor mark Lewis for joining us today and thanks also to our podcast producer in london, guy how gram morrik and guy. For links to our archive, check the show notes on aviation week to com, apple podcast, spotify or wherever you get your podcast and to venta archive for yourself.

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