Solar Plane Takes Off on Historic Coast-to-Coast Flight

[Donger]

http://news.yahoo.com/solar-plane-ta...135018073.html

A solar-powered airplane that can fly day and night without using a single drop of fuel embarked on an unprecedented flight across the United States today (May 3).

The solar-powered aircraft, named Solar Impulse, took off from Moffett Airfield near San Francisco, Calif., shortly after 9:00 a.m. EDT (6:00 a.m. PDT). The plane will now head south on the first 19-hour leg of its journey, and is expected to touch down at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport on Saturday (May 4) at 4:00 a.m. EDT (1:00 a.m. PDT).

Solar Impulse is the first aircraft capable of flying day and night without using any fuel. The plane relies solely on its solar panels and onboard batteries for power. During today's flight, the aircraft is expected to reach a cruising altitude of 21,000 feet (6,400 meters). [Images: Cross-Country Flight in a Solar-Powered Plane]

Solar Impulse founders Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will alternate piloting the single-seater plane over the five legs of the journey. Piccard was at the controls for today's takeoff from California.

[big nasty kcnut]

I hope that they can make a battery to run a passenger airplane without jet fuel.

[redsurfer11]

Originally Posted by Cannibal

Of course bitter old Mikey would be against this. ****ing asshole.

This represents major advancement in engineering and science, but old man Mikey and has to be a bitter ****. Why the **** would be against this?

Currently flying electric and solar aircraft are mostly experimental demonstrators, including manned and unmanned aerial vehicles. Electrically powered and solar model aircraft have been flown since the 1970s, with one report in 1957. The only major advancement is the batteries.

[Cannibal]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

This represents a major advancement in engineering and science, not that silly political stunt that you're trumpeting.


http://www.popsci.com/technology/art...03/warp-factor

Last September, a few hundred scientists, engineers and space enthusiasts gathered at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Houston for the second public meeting of 100 Year Starship. The group is run by former astronaut Mae Jemison and funded by DARPA. Its mission is to “make the capability of human travel beyond our solar system to another star a reality within the next 100 years.”

For most of the attendees at the conference, advances in manned space exploration have been frustratingly slow in coming. Despite billions of dollars spent over the last few decades, space agencies aren’t capable of much more than they were in the 1960s. They may be capable of less. 100 Year Starship intends to accelerate the process of interstellar travel by identifying and developing promising technologies.

Over the course of several days, attendees could join symposia on such exotic topics as organ regeneration and organized religion aboard a starship. One of the most anticipated presentations was titled “Warp Field Mechanics 102,” given by Harold “Sonny” White of NASA. A nine-year agency veteran, White runs the advanced propulsion program at Johnson Space Center (JSC), down the road from the Hyatt. Along with five others, he recently co-authored the agency’s 16-year “In-Space Propulsion Systems Roadmap,” which outlines NASA’s goals for the future of space travel. The plan calls for all manner of propulsion projects from improved chemical rockets to far-forward systems like antimatter and nuclear engines. White’s particular area of research is perhaps the most far-forward of them all: warp drive.

Put plainly, warp drive would permit faster-than-light travel. It is, most assume, impossible, a clear violation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. White says otherwise. For half an hour at the symposium, he outlined the physics of a potential warp drive—walking attendees through things like Alcubierre bubbles and hyperspace oscillations. He explained how he’d recently computed theoretical results that could pave the way for an actual warp drive and that he was commencing physical tests in his NASA lab, which he calls Eagleworks.

It almost goes without saying that functional warp drive would have tremendous implications for space travel. It would free explorers not only from Earth’s orbit, but from the entire solar system. Instead of taking 75,000 years to get to Alpha Centauri, the star system nearest to our own, warp-equipped astronauts, White says, could make the trip in two weeks.

In the wake of the shuttle program’s termination and given the increasing role of private industry in low-Earth orbit flights, NASA has said it will refocus on far-flung, audacious exploration, reaching far beyond the rather provincial boundary of the moon. But it can only reach those goals if it develops new propulsion systems—the faster the better. A few days after the 100 Year Starship gathering, the head of NASA, Charles Bolden, echoed White’s remarks. “One of these days, we want to get to warp speed,” he said. “We want to go faster than the speed of light, and we don’t want to stop at Mars.”

That is interesting, let's hope they can achieve it in the next couple hundred years.

In the meantime, the hippy plane is actually going to fly and I think its pretty cool.

[BlackHelicopters]

Too bad they can't power the plain with all the farts coming from coach.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Guru

They will PAY for what they have done. IIIIII will MAKE them PAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THERE

ARE

FOUR

PROPELLERS!

[Donger]

Just in case anyone is interested, Solar Impulse 2 is over the Pacific, trying to make it to Hawaii:

http://www.solarimpulse.com/sitv