Can anyone tell me WHY

[darkstar]

As for strapping people and wheels to jet engines and pretending they're cars - it's pathetic. I'd rather a tenth of all that effort and expense was put in to sterling engines.

So you can simply put the whole project down with that sentence? So much passion, creativity, intelligence and guts are involved in making this happen, they already hold the record.
If you don't believe in that particular project, then fine but don't rubbish it unless you are making an effort to improve the world and progress with similar results.
Why don;t you research into sterling engines instead of letting others do it?

 

[tyred]

I think it's excellent. Pushing the boundaries of what is possible is a wonderful achievement in any field and I wish them all the best.

 

[Lazy-Commuter]

I too have heard Richard Noble speak. Highly inspiring chap, and an excellent enterprise that inspires kids to become engineers and results in all kinds of engineering problems being solved along the way.

.. I think that's reason enough: I keep hearing that we're heading for a shortage of engineer and scientist graduates in the UK and that can't be a good thing. Anything that inspires people to take some steps along that path is worthwhile.

 

[Mr Pig]

Anything that inspires people to take some steps along that path is worthwhile.

Or any path. For me it's not just about engineering. It's about showing people that if they put the work in and refuse to give up then can excel.

To be honest though I am a bit worried. A lot of people have been killed pursuing speed records and I'd hate to see Richard Noble and his team crushed by disaster after their great victories.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I'm with yenners and dell on this one, I'm afraid. Not everything is good just because it's British engineering or innovation. Technical innovation matters if it's producing something worthwhile. This is basically a wasteful, entirely pointless and egotistical exercise that basically involved strapping a jet engine onto a chassis and flying it along the ground. Great. That is going to benefit no-one and is environmentally destructive. And any accidental spin-offs could have been achieved by doing something else rather less pointless. I do wish that such great technical minds could do something beneficial...

 

[Arch]

Much as I wish it was so, no-one's going to inspire future engineers with wind turbines.

Anyway, they're having fun. Let 'em.. I'd rather they did this than design weapons and blow the crap out of each other.

 

[Over The Hill]

I really quite like people who push the limits further. The technology of the cutting edge filters down and benefits us all.

The thing I can't stand is "Explorers"; It has all been explored and found now. Every land walked on and every mountain climbed. So they are just Travellers.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I really quite like people who push the limits further. The technology of the cutting edge filters down and benefits us all.

Maybe, but they aren't doing anything particularly new with the engine tech at least.

 

[Arch]

I really quite like people who push the limits further. The technology of the cutting edge filters down and benefits us all.

The thing I can't stand is "Explorers"; It has all been explored and found now. Every land walked on and every mountain climbed. So they are just Travellers.

Not quite true. There are large swathes of Papua that have barely been explored - and just walking on a place isn't the same as properly exploring it, studying the wildlife and so on. There are even, I think, in South America, isolated groups of natives who've yet to have ny significant contact made with them (good thing for them, too).

Not to mention all the tracts of ocean that haven't yet been studied in any detail. Then there are cave systems....

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Not to mention all the tracts of ocean that haven't yet been studied in any detail ...

What's that Bill Bryson quote ... something along the lines of "What we know about the deep oceans can be compared to what we would know about the land masses of our planet if our knowledge was based upon the observations of five guys driving around in the dark on lawnmowers".

 

[Deleted member 1258]

The company I work for was heavily involved in this
http://www.jcbdieselmax.com/html/car.php
It was amazing to see just how much work goes into a project like that, and to see it develop from a model to the full working car. I started at the company as a labourer/driver just as the project started and spent a lot of hours collecting and delivering parts and materials for it during that summer.

 

[Coco]

Maybe, but they aren't doing anything particularly new with the engine tech at least.

How many other cars have had a rocket strapped to a jet engine?

 

[Over The Hill]

I'm with yenners and dell on this one, I'm afraid. Not everything is good just because it's British engineering or innovation. Technical innovation matters if it's producing something worthwhile. This is basically a wasteful, entirely pointless and egotistical exercise that basically involved strapping a jet engine onto a chassis and flying it along the ground. Great. That is going to benefit no-one and is environmentally destructive. And any accidental spin-offs could have been achieved by doing something else rather less pointless. I do wish that such great technical minds could do something beneficial...

I am sure I read that Aerodynamics is the limiting factor in such things. Just strapping a bigger engine onto some wheels is not going to do it.

Perhaps they are covering the car in little bobbles like on a golf ball (that are there to make it go further) they must be developing it in some way that pushes the envelope. Perhaps pointless - perhaps not.

If they developed a way to cut down drag on a car it could save the world x% of fuel for cars. I am sure you would then not see it as pointless.

You may dig up a diamond or just dig up a rock - but you have to dig to get either.


The other way to make advances seems to be by fighting wars and developing weapons. We went to the moon with men strapped on the top of a weapon of war. The outcome is often not as per the original idea.

 

[MajorMantra]

Technical innovation matters if it's producing something worthwhile.

If humans had limited themselves to projects with an obviously worthwhile and beneficial outcome then we'd still be living in caves. A fair few great discoveries and leaps in technology have been incidental or even accidental.

Matthew

 

[Mr Pig]

Maybe, but they aren't doing anything particularly new with the engine tech at least.

But there are lots of problems you wouldn't think of. Like how you get wheels to rotate along the ground at that speed without melting or getting a jet engine to deal with running at full tilt six-feet off the ground. Getting the car to stay in contact with the ground without either pressing down too hard or generating lift and taking off.

And how do you stop the thing and turn it around quickly as you've only got a certain time to do the obligatory two runs.