Development
The project was announced on 23 October 2008 at the Science Museum in London by Lord Drayson - then Minister of Science in the UK's Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills - who in 2006 first proposed the project to Richard Noble and Andy Green (the two men, between them, have held the land speed record for 29 years).
Richard Noble, engineer, adventurer, and former paint salesman, reached 633 mph (1,019 km/h) driving turbojet-powered car named Thrust2 across the Nevada desert in 1983. In 1997, he headed the project to build the ThrustSSC, driven by Andy Green, an RAF pilot, at 763 mph (1,228 km/h), thereby breaking the sound barrier, a record first for a land vehicle (in compliance with Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile rules).
The task of driving the Bloodhound will fall to Wing Commander Green, who will lie feet-first in the Bloodhound SSC. As the car accelerates from 0-1,000 miles per hour (1,609 km/h) in 42 seconds, he will experience a force of approximately 2.5g (two-and-a-half times his body weight) and blood will rush to his head.
To slow the vehicle, Green will deploy airbrakes at 800 mph (1,300 km/h), and subsequently parachutes at 600 mph (970 km/h), with disc brakes used below 250 mph (400 km/h). As he decelerates, experiencing forces of up to 3g, blood will drain to his feet, with a risk of driver blackout. To condition his body for these intense g-forces, he will practise in a stunt aircraft, flying upside-down over the British countryside.
Read more about this topic: Bloodhound SSC
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“If you complain of people being shot down in the streets, of the absence of communication or social responsibility, of the rise of everyday violence which people have become accustomed to, and the dehumanization of feelings, then the ultimate development on an organized social level is the concentration camp.... The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.”
—John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902)
“To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)