RE: Axe finally falls on Bloodhound SSC project
Discussion
slipstream 1985 said:
Bit of a dead end development and tech wise. What advantages will come from it? I know we should always be pushing technical bondaries but land based high speeds are not the way forward. Maglev trains, vacuum tunnels and space travel are the way forward for high speed transport.
Your sort of thinking is the true 'dead-end'. It has been shown time and again that it is impossible to predict the full benefits to society of pushing the boundaries for no other reason than we can.
Damn shame this has been canned.
Esceptico said:
£25 million sounds like a lot...but having checked it seems top F1 teams spend about £400 million a year. Viewed in that terms it doesn’t seem so bad.
But F1 tech is far more relevant to todays cars, and future cars. Unless plans are afoot to give us al rocket cars in the future, then what will Bloodhound bring to the table? Apart from a new world record.As others have said, if this was a EV land speed record attempt, they'd be awash with money.
wab172uk said:
But F1 tech is far more relevant to todays cars, and future cars.
There's also the minor point that for whatever reason, people actually give a f
k about F1 in significant numbers.If you sponsor an F1 team, your return on investment is global TV and press coverage for 21 races per season, and a couple of hundred thousand people turn up to watch each of those races in person.
If you sponsor Bloodhound, you get a 30 second slot on the UK national news, on one day, if sets the record, and the actual run will probably be witnessed by a handful of uber-anoraks as a noisy mirage in the far distance of a South African desert.
Equus said:
If you sponsor Bloodhound, you get a 30 second slot on the UK national news, on one day, if sets the record, and the actual run will probably be witnessed by a handful of uber-anoraks as a noisy mirage in the far distance of a South African desert.
IF Bloodhound broke the 1000mph barrier, surely the publicity value would be greater than 30 seconds on UK news?I imagine there would be (minor) news coverage globally, and even if there wasn't, the amount of international coverage on car and technology websites would be significant. That's without all of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram coverage which would be generated.
Ok, it's impossible to predict and quantify the amount of publicity coverage, but I'm still surprised somebody didn't think it would be worth the value. (Bearing in mind that some companies can spend £5m - £10m just on their Christmas advert production, and Coca Cola spends £4 billion annually).
Paul_M3 said:
IF Bloodhound broke the 1000mph barrier, surely the publicity value would be greater than 30 seconds on UK news?
Possibly I'm being pessimistic - I've just checked, and Thrust SSC managed a whopping 1 minute 18 seconds coverage on the BBC news, when it took the record... But of course, that was taking the record supersonic, which was a much more real and significant benchmark, in an age before we became quite so 'green'.
1000mph isn't a 'barrier', it's just a number (and one that only makes sense in the UK and USA, these days - everybody else thinks in km/h). Try telling the Australian media you've just broken the 1609.34km/h 'barrier' and see how interested they are.
Edited by Equus on Sunday 9th December 14:57
Paul_M3 said:
IF Bloodhound broke the 1000mph barrier, surely the publicity value would be greater than 30 seconds on UK news?
I imagine there would be (minor) news coverage globally, and even if there wasn't, the amount of international coverage on car and technology websites would be significant. That's without all of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram coverage which would be generated.
Ok, it's impossible to predict and quantify the amount of publicity coverage, but I'm still surprised somebody didn't think it would be worth the value. (Bearing in mind that some companies can spend £5m - £10m just on their Christmas advert production, and Coca Cola spends £4 billion annually).
Sadly It would get a lot more news coverage and publicity if it barrel rolled down the track in a ball of fire at 500mph.I imagine there would be (minor) news coverage globally, and even if there wasn't, the amount of international coverage on car and technology websites would be significant. That's without all of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram coverage which would be generated.
Ok, it's impossible to predict and quantify the amount of publicity coverage, but I'm still surprised somebody didn't think it would be worth the value. (Bearing in mind that some companies can spend £5m - £10m just on their Christmas advert production, and Coca Cola spends £4 billion annually).
Very high risk for 30 seconds of fame or a lifetime of infamy, guilt and repercussions.
A bit miserable as a bunch, aren't we?
Some of the negative comments don't make much sense.
- F1 doesn't merit any news in most countries most of the time, breaking 1,000mph would be news everywhere.
- It's a cool project, it fires the imaginations of kids, that alone should be reason enough.
- Pushing the envelope for its own sake is exciting and often rewarding in the long term.
- 25 million is chump change. So much money gets wasted by corporations on so much ridiculous and utterly useless stuff.
Personally I'm sorry the project folded, but I can agree with the people who said that it took too long and the costs could have been controlled better.
Some of the negative comments don't make much sense.
- F1 doesn't merit any news in most countries most of the time, breaking 1,000mph would be news everywhere.
- It's a cool project, it fires the imaginations of kids, that alone should be reason enough.
- Pushing the envelope for its own sake is exciting and often rewarding in the long term.
- 25 million is chump change. So much money gets wasted by corporations on so much ridiculous and utterly useless stuff.
Personally I'm sorry the project folded, but I can agree with the people who said that it took too long and the costs could have been controlled better.
The Crack Fox said:
This reminds me a little of the Bluebird project; with a slightly disinterested public watching Donald Campbell chasing a record that didn't seem to make much sense to anyone else...
Indeed... speed record breaking was a horse that had been just about flogged to death, even by the late ;'60s.The irony is that Campbell killed himself in a vain attempt to drum up enthusiasm for a Mach 1.1 rocket car that in some ways was much more advanced in its thinking than Bloodhound... it was a tiny, lightweight (1,600kg, fuelled) design that used clever thinking rather than just brute force and ignorance to achieve its performance. Very much the Lotus approach, where Bloodhound is more akin to your 'worlds fastest lorry' Blower Bentley.
Equus said:
The Crack Fox said:
This reminds me a little of the Bluebird project; with a slightly disinterested public watching Donald Campbell chasing a record that didn't seem to make much sense to anyone else...
Indeed... speed record breaking was a horse that had been just about flogged to death, even by the late ;'60s.The irony is that Campbell killed himself in a vain attempt to drum up enthusiasm for a Mach 1.1 rocket car that in some ways was much more advanced in its thinking than Bloodhound... it was a tiny, lightweight (1,600kg, fuelled) design that used clever thinking rather than just brute force and ignorance to achieve its performance. Very much the Lotus approach, where Bloodhound is more akin to your 'worlds fastest lorry' Blower Bentley.
Really??
peterperkins said:
Sadly It would get a lot more news coverage and publicity if it barrel rolled down the track in a ball of fire at 500mph.
Very high risk for 30 seconds of fame or a lifetime of infamy, guilt and repercussions.
This is a major problem from my perspective. It would put me off if I was a potential investor, that's for sure. I visited the Blooodhound site as part of an engineering conference a few years ago. The wheel interaction with the ground is in my view, the number one risk to the car and really likely to destroy it. The return from success simply wouldn't be worth the £25M investment given that the chance of killing Andy Green and the repercussions on the schools involvements etc would be so high.Very high risk for 30 seconds of fame or a lifetime of infamy, guilt and repercussions.
LongRat said:
peterperkins said:
Sadly It would get a lot more news coverage and publicity if it barrel rolled down the track in a ball of fire at 500mph.
Very high risk for 30 seconds of fame or a lifetime of infamy, guilt and repercussions.
This is a major problem from my perspective. It would put me off if I was a potential investor, that's for sure. I visited the Blooodhound site as part of an engineering conference a few years ago. The wheel interaction with the ground is in my view, the number one risk to the car and really likely to destroy it. The return from success simply wouldn't be worth the £25M investment given that the chance of killing Andy Green and the repercussions on the schools involvements etc would be so high.Very high risk for 30 seconds of fame or a lifetime of infamy, guilt and repercussions.
I asked on the other main thread how £25m was arrived at. I just can’t see where that figure comes into play let alone any deep risk that would be mitigated/argued away.
From the outside, logistics and things like necessary fuel etc would be line items that add up, but I guess most of the engineering legwork is done. Would love to see a £25m breakdown. Even after licking the rock you couldn’t find the most expensive air freighter and move that car to SA and plough through £25m. Or could you?
CS Garth said:
I'd say they would be better paring up with some tech firm, making the car autonomous and going for 1000MPH as the world's fastest autonomous vehicle.
It's certainly one of the major absurdities of the current rules, that you have to have a human pilot on board.If we're still pretending (notwithstanding the fact that these speeds and much higher have already been routinely achieved on various rocket sled test programmes) that such an attempt is really intended to further scientific or technical knowledge, then it could be done much more simply and cheaply by an autonomous or remotely piloted vehicle.
If you want to prove that it could carry a man, then use a crash test dummy with appropriate sensors.
Why risk a human life, when there is no need to?
Equus said:
CS Garth said:
I'd say they would be better paring up with some tech firm, making the car autonomous and going for 1000MPH as the world's fastest autonomous vehicle.
It's certainly one of the major absurdities of the current rules, that you have to have a human pilot on board.If we're still pretending (notwithstanding the fact that these speeds and much higher have already been routinely achieved on various rocket sled test programmes) that such an attempt is really intended to further scientific or technical knowledge, then it could be done much more simply and cheaply by an autonomous or remotely piloted vehicle.
If you want to prove that it could carry a man, then use a crash test dummy with appropriate sensors.
Why risk a human life, when there is no need to?
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