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:
“Information about child development enhances parents capacity to respond appropriately to their children. Informed parents are better equipped to problem-solve, more confident of their decisions, and more likely to respond sensitively to their childrens developmental needs.”
—L. P. Wandersman (20th century)
“Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else.”
—Simone Weil (19091943)
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)