Hypersonia Incubates

The COVID-19 virus is a radical innovation. It is counter-intuitive or even counterfactual to term it so. It is even dis-empathetic to call this human-killer an innovation. So, the aim is not celebrating or embracing this dreadful virus. It is, nonetheless, a useful analogy to describe the innovation of Hypersonia.

The constitution of the COVID-19 ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus points to a combination of two: big and small protein strands from 2 viruses. Combination is a feature of innovation. Ideas, companies, industries, sectors, and technologies combine to create better and bigger ones. Novelty is the essence of radical innovations. The virus has proven to be so. Confounding established and known knowledge, sciences, and technologies.

Moreover, the stealth and speed of the virus have stunned even the best companies, cities, countries, doctors, economies, laboratories, hospitals, scientists, and technologists. Such is its unprecedented virulence especially in vulnerable individuals, that it has moved so fast, secretly, that our best is struggling in its wake. Of course, a radical innovation requires a steep learning curve for the mastery of its mainstay and methods. And the appropriate responses are being provided. Notwithstanding, this is a Surprise!

Virulence is a hallmark of a successful radical innovation. A transformative idea or invention which spreads rapidly in the markets is called ‘viral’. Such Surprise is evident in the super-scaling law that governs the rapid adoption and diffusion of the technology. COVID-19 has scaled exponentially in the way digital technologies such as smartphones and apps are doing.

Stealth, Speed and Surprise are the attributes of Hypersonia.

The history and trajectory of DigiMech tie with that of Hypersonia. The space race during the Cold War massively boosted and created digital technologies which controlled the mechanical capsules, engines, landers, and rockets. These seeds became fruits – the modern computers and networks.

The massive explosion in the use of digital, internet and mobile technologies is deepening the foundation and forms of DigiMech. Creating the Great Digital Surge. As people are staying at, and working from, their homes to combat the scourge of the deadly virus, biotech, clinical, digital, informational, mechanical, manufacturing, organisational, social, and therapeutic innovations are being forged and fostered in the crucible.

The Great Surge, as I call it, also benefits Hypersonia. Adoption and use spur further innovation. Massive uptakes of 3D printing, artificial intelligence, automation, Cloud, simulation, quantum computing, supercomputing, are forging ahead. Pointing to a state where better advanced tools and technologies will be made more adept, apt and abundant to build hypersonic vehicles. Even as more doing, living, and working are being done within the confines of homes, someone or somebody somewhere is either building, designing, or thinking hypersonic airframes, business, engines, structures, and technologies.

The Great Surge is calling for deeper and more innovation in, and investment into, digital and physical infrastructures. An auspicious indication for ramping up the building of blockchain, 5G, broadband satellites, fibre-optics, and of course faster flight technologies.

Fusions

The Stealth and Speed attributes of Hypersonia have been presented. The Surprise element is how rocket-powered hypersonic companies are rapidly advancing Stratospheric-Space Fusion (SSF) and Military-Civilian Fusion (MCF). Instructively, these responsible and responsive companies, are re-tooling quickly.

The companies are using both traditional machining and milling technologies and emerging ones, to create and scale-up the designing and manufacturing of much-needed face masks & shields and ventilators. Less is written about how these extant and emerging technologies are tools for developing much needed medicines or vaccines.

The same tools and technologies are advancing Hypersonia.

In solving COVID-19 and re-building our economies, organisations, markets, and societies, Hypersonia plays a key and kernelled role in the “Day After Tomorrow”[1]. The stratospheric part of SSF is still at its infancy. One can nonetheless see its potentials. Spending less time in flight not only frees up time for household socialisation and creativity, it is also health-promoting.

Imagine a hypersonic airliner with nano-tech engineered air-conditioning and filtration system, carrying passengers before the pandemic. They would be breathing in fresher and more sterile air; the disembarking refreshed passengers were exposed to less loads of the virus as a result. And hence, less chance of contacting and spreading the virus.

Of course, infectivity was further reduced, as direct person-to-person transmission was minimised by other standard health & safety measures. Although it is still debatable whether the virus lives and stays airborne long enough to be infectious or transmitted, these possibilities were however, life-enhancing.

This vision is coming soon.

Meanwhile, the space part of SSF is advancing. Rocket-powered and vertically launched capsules and shuttles have been the mainstay of space travel for the last seven decades. These path-dependent technologies have advanced and proven themselves reliable over the years. Once dominated by government owned companies or agencies, the industry is being transformed by private companies.

Space X recently retired its old Dragon space capsule after completing a landmark 20th re-supply trip to the International Space Station (ISS). The new eponymous capsule, capable of ferrying both humans and cargoes, is billed to make a historic trip to the ISS in May 2020. The US government pines for this and the struggling Boeing Starliner, as suitable replacements for the Russia built and operated Soyuz workhorse capsule.

Space X is a lodestar for private entrepreneurialism in the once closed space industry. There are others in play as well.

The Cygnus ‘cylinder’ spacecraft designed by Orbital Sciences Corporation and built and operated by Northrop Grumman also makes supply trips to the ISS. The latter company in an unprecedented manner, has recently launched a robot – Mission Extension Vehicle into space, to extend the operating life of expensive and ageing geosynchronous earth satellites (GEOs). These sorts of satellites were thought to be out of vogue.

Little we remember that navigation and most functioning communication satellites are in this high orbit. Interestingly, a recent report points to a possible resurgence of interests in GEOs, because of cost and capacity advantages.

GEOs, now, are being launched into orbit by disposable high-powered rockets. A reusable horizontal take-off horizontal launch (HTHL) spaceplane, however, will bring capability and cost advantages. The big satellites carried to a low or medium orbit by such plane will be carried higher by rockets powered by fuels or ion thrusters.

The routine lobbing of stuffs into space was one of the strategic thoughts behind developing the iconic Space Shuttle.

The NASA operated Space Shuttle was a rocket-launched vertically take-off horizontal landing (VTHL) spacecraft. It was used to launch probes, satellites, telescopes, and supplies into space. Over the years of its operation, it demonstrated how the elements and environment act and react to a vehicle entering the atmosphere at uber hypersonic speeds (Mach 18+). Its high operational cost however, put an end to its use. Since then, private operators have been innovating.

Dream Chaser by Sierra Nevada Corporation in California is a smaller VTHL space shuttle. It is another option for NASA for supplying the ISS. The spaceplane is an offshoot of the Martin’s X-24 spacecraft series in the 1970s[2]. Lockheed back then, developed the X-24C of the series. It also partnered with hypersonic pioneers Marquardt Corporation and Rocketdyne to develop innovative combined cycle engines. Both Martin and Lockheed are part of Lockheed Martin today. Giving it a foot in at the door of Hypersonia. Its long-running colleague is in the mix as well.

Boeing with a study project titled Technology Requirements for Advanced Earth Orbital Transportation Systems in the late 1970s, researched ideas for replacing the Space Shuttle. This strategic planning, however, never materialised for reasons I do not know now. Perhaps, the unfortunate but avoidable Challenger and Columbia accidents had something to do with this supposed inaction. This said, Boeing later co-developed the X-43 rocket-boosted scramjet-powered spaceplane.

The recently scrapped XS-1 VTHL military spaceplane with DARPA was another aborted effort. The scramjet-powered rocket-boosted X-51 Waverider spaceplane, though discontinued, is contributing to the development of Global Strike Prompt hypersonic missiles. The continuing success of the highly secretive X-37 autonomous Orbital Test Vehicle is encouraging. This VTHL shuttle has been conducting classified missions for the US Airforce in the last 2 years.

The success of Hypersonia requires a workable Military-Civilian Fusion (MCF). A context where national security merges with domestic wellbeing for the development and diffusion of innovations and technologies. Boeing typifies this fusion. And it is also working to advance Stratospheric-Space Fusion (SSF).

The Fusion spaces are increasingly being occupied by upstarts. There are now a flurry of start-ups and even nations developing low-cost rockets for hauling nanosats and smallsats into low earth orbit (LEO). The US Military is either eyeing or sponsoring some of these. Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, and others are vertical launched rocket-powered examples. Virgin Orbit is a mothership-HTHL example.

The latter was recently awarded a contract by the US Department of Defence for using its Boeing 747 mothership and rockets for launching satellites. The Royal Airforce is working with this possibility for launching smallsats. A move which I conceive, will require the planes and rockets becoming military grade – hardening against possible cyber, electronic, and nuclear attacks. Thus, spurring further DigiMech innovations in digital and materials technologies.

Others with spaceplane capability are in play.

Virgin Galactic and Stratolaunch are examples. The latter is now under the ownership of a private equity firm, and is pivoting to using its gigantic mothership as a testbed for developing hypersonic technologies. It is reported to be working on autonomous mothership launched and HTHL spaceplanes. These cargo and commuter carrying capabilities augur well for both SSF and MCF.

 Astronauts, tourists (touronauts) and supplies can quickly be flown into space and around the world. From a global security perspective, I conceive that expeditionary elite and special forces can be ferried quickly to any flashpoints in the world under 1 hour. Of course, for this military purpose special hardening is required. Maybe not for other similar potential civilian usages.

Surely, hypersonic vehicles are advancing and growing.

The reason for my narrative is that Hypersonia is alive and kicking. Going into space and incubating in the crisis. It has even contributed to advancing biotechnology. The trips by capsules, for instance, have included flying and conducting biotechnological experiments on molecules and specimens in space. The Mobile SpaceLab, an ‘automated microfluidic and imaging platform’ has flown on Cygnus Capsule to ISS. 

Hypersonia is waiting to abound and advance post-COVID-19. Meanwhile, it is contributing to fighting the scourge – spurring further and newer innovations. This success is required for creating alternative but complementary propulsion technologies. Surprise is needed.

 Propel

Hypersonic companies are going to space. Rocket-launched capsules, cylinders, shuttles, and air-launched spaceplanes are still dominant. No doubt these computerised machines are products of decadal and serial creativity and ingenuity.

The core vision of Hypersonia, however, is horizontal take-off and landing (HTHL) airliner. One that is capable of ferrying people and goods around the world at high speed. And capable of lofting probes, satellites, space-farers and supplies to space. This will make stratospheric flight a regular reality. For this to happen combinations of sciences and technologies are required.

Alternative and complementary engine innovations are required. No doubt, modern rockets are advanced technologies. The SABRE engine – a combinatorial innovation, is an example. An airbreathing rocket using hydrogen as fuel and helium as a coolant. Reaction Engines is exemplary, but several commercial, economic, and technical reasons, nonetheless, call for new and further innovations.

The studies I am carrying out over the last 4 months, is instructing that we are just scratching the surface of possibilities. A NASA-funded landmark study[3] carried out by Marquardt Corporation, Lockheed and Rocketdyne in the late 1960s, is informative. To start with, there are up to 36 different radical combinations of rocket, ramjet, scramjet, turbojet & turbofan technologies that are available for powering Hypersonia. And better still, most of these are air-breathing combos that are capable of up to Mach 12+ speed.

The combos are suitable for powering hypersonic airliners in the stratosphere and into low space orbit. Marquart Corporation built and tested a variant known as Supercharged Ejector Ramjet (SERJ). An air-breathing engine, combined with a rocket acting as an ejector into the ramjet, and was capable of high speed from take-off, low speed cruising & loitering and landing.

The SERJ design alone has about 6 different combinations, depending on how the air-fuel interface and interactions are creatively altered. As conditioned by altering the dimension, performance, position, and structure of the engine types and sub-components. And by changing the fuel between hydrogen or hydrocarbons and their phasic states. These chemical and physical variations employ changes in pressure, temperature, turbulence, and volume to generate high speed lift and thrust.

The SERJ speeds up to Mach 4.5. Replacing the ramjet engine with a scramjet one, boosts the speed up to Mach 12. Adding different permutations of afterburner, turbojet and turbofan technologies can either augment, substitute or support these individuals and combinations. Therefore, further boosting the speeds of the constituents and the combines. Bearing in mind that the study and tests were carried out over 5 decades ago, the benefits of modern computational, energy and materials technologies will surely boost efficiency and performance.

The pursuit and delivery of radicalism can contribute to developing alternative means of greening hypersonic engines. I conceive that with modern technologies, advanced design & engineering techniques, and alternative fuels, when combined with shorter but faster flight times, less carbon emission is highly achievable. Once the plane is in the stratosphere, less fuel is required as less drag is encountered. Hydrogen peroxide, methane, methanol, liquefied natural gas (LNG), propylene and others are alternative fuels.

A hypersonic craft generates loads of heat. Up to about 30000C – mostly at its leading edges and to a lesser extent at other surfaces. Dissipating this heat in a rapid manner is a problem waiting for solutions. One is nano-engineering breathable high strength composites and metals. I conceive, for instance, biomimicking how plants transpire on leaf surfaces or how mammalian skins perspire. Circulating coolants rapidly around the inner body of the engines and airframe is another means.

The engine, air-conditioning and cabin pressurisation systems of a modern aircraft work together in a complex. I learnt such from the reading a richly informative book[4]. Using the alternative fuels, including hydrogen individually or in combination as both a coolant and fuel, affords a creative and greener means of cooling, the body, and powering the engines. Also, supplying coolness, heating, and moisture inside the cabin as the ambient temperature demands. The turbomachinery system of the engine provides the extraction and pumping actions.

There is the development of turboelectric engines at NASA, including developing the N3-X Hybrid Wing Body Turboelectric plane. Both battery and hydrocarbon energies are combined to drive a turbojet/fan. Rocket Lab, an innovative start-up uses electric turbo engines to pump fuels into its liquid oxygen propellant Rutherford engines. The turbomachinery together with the composite-built Electron rockets and engines are being designed and built with 3D printing technology.

The ongoing project by Rolls Royce to use REs’ super cooler in improving the efficiency and performance of its EJ200 turbojet engine is also an example. Moreover, Britain has an ongoing project to electrify aviation, which will no doubt contribute to advancing or hybridising jet engines. The project is led by Research Institute Cranfield Aerospace and includes a small plane maker – Britten Norman and automobile maker – Aston Martin, which is developing its flying car – Volante concept.

Hybridisation of jet engines promises faster flying cars and drones. This calls for innovating with the rise of micro-turbine engines. I see Tesla coming out with a faster electric or hybrid plane soon. Its expertise in electric motor and battery technologies makes Tesla a suitable partner for companies developing hypersonic technologies.

In this regard, considering that the electric motor, which powers a small Dyson vacuum cleaner generates up to 44 000 G-Force, informs that a far bigger one can act as an ejector in a hybrid or combined hypersonic engine. 1 G-Force is what is experienced on the ground on earth. Astonishing, when you know that astronauts are exposed to between 3-9 G-Force when ascending in a rocket.

These innovations will contribute to building radical hypersonic engines.

Hypersonia is not at odds with the goals of reducing carbon emission. In fact, it will enhance it. The challenge of climate activism is not understanding that technology transitions take time to materialise. The political economy must constantly jostle with the innovation programme for supremacy. Progress is not by anarchy or violence, but by producing superior affordable and performing technologies.

Coal, which powered the 1st Industrial Revolution, is 250 years in use as an energy source, and still in use today, for instance. Imagine what it would be like today if we didn’t have petro-based materials for making the much-needed face masks and hand sterilisers.

Reading the book[5], foregrounds the challenge any alternative fuel faces. During the development of the legendary SR 71 Mach 3+ supersonic aircraft, hydrogen was the original preferred choice. However, the immaturity of the energy-technology system and absent or weak global supply chain, disqualified its use. Of course, advances are being made on this front, but not yet capacious enough to supply a globe-trotting civilian hypersonic airliner. Hypersonia will contribute to this trajectory.

A reusable, practical and routine hypersonic airliner powered by preferred and suitable engines and fuels is a radical innovation. The business and commercial outcomes are beneficial and transformative.

Surprise

The Surprise COVID-19 is bringing forth is creating and generating various innovations. The Great Digital Surge for instance, is ramping up commercial investments and user-innovations. The public health crisis that is bordering on an economic one, is perhaps masking the productivity this surge is generating. Notwithstanding, in time, we will know if the surge results in long-term socio-economic boost and growth, when the dampening effects of the crisis is discounted. Notwithstanding, I have been virtually attending services and conferences since the lockdown began at my church, and this has been helpful and soothing.

Now and even Post-COVID-19, glaring deficiencies in digital infrastructure will be rectified. For instance, the infrastructure supporting the processing and payment of financial aids to individuals, households and businesses have been found wanting in some countries. Mitigating and correcting this constraint, will of course require both public and private investment and innovations. This, I conceive, will either create or sustain any productivity the Great Surge brings. How long-lasting this boost (if any) becomes, requires a new technological paradigm. Hypersonia fits the bill.

The development of radical combinatorial engines using alternative fuels will complement the extant. More choices bring options. And these bring dynamism as designers and manufacturers of all shapes and sizes, have the latitude to experiment and build for various markets and users.

Economically, the Surprise of Hypersonia are the benefits afforded to individuals, organisations, and nations as in having more time to create, read, relate, relax, worship by spending less time travelling around the world. The dynamism, efficiency, and productivity this affords and brings, generates economic growth and wellbeing.

Commercially, Hypersonia offers opportunities and potentials for every business and company. The flexibility and fruitfulness of emerging technologies and the effusiveness of fiscal policy and financial capital, afford and enable. The flourishing of 3D printing, artificial intelligence, Cloud (distributed computing), supercomputing, and robotics, is making start-ups such as Relativity Space and Rocket Lab look like veterans. And advances in quantum computing and bioengineering will further contribute.

The same technologies will open the door of opportunity for businesses and companies from different industries and sectors to pivot to Hypersonia. Different parts and wholes are to be built, by and for anyone with the right entrepreneurial drive and financial capability. Marquardt had these attributes.

The pioneering hypersonic company, ahead of its time, tried everything to develop and commercialise its technologies. It created, innovated, and partnered with different aerospace companies including rocket makers such as Rocketdyne and Aerojet. Moreover, it mobilised both internal and external (corporate, institutional, and military) funding to these ends. Its turboramjet engine was used by Lockheed Martin to power the supersonic Mach 3+ D21 spy drone, as part of the secretive, but as regarding its purpose, hugely successful SR 71 platform. Yet, it went into bankruptcy.

The Marquardt saga offers lessons for building Hypersonia. It informs that building the future is important. And when doing so, technological variety must be enabled and promoted. No doubt, the space programme during the Cold War was a hugely successful large-scale technological endeavour. It, however, in my opinion, partly created a rocket path-dependency. The public spectacle of its success and the institutional cement that followed favoured rockets over developing alternative propulsion technologies. This snuffed live out of the emerging market that was emerging for ramjets, scramjets, and even for advanced turbojets, for instance.

The Pratt & Whitney jet engine built for powering the Boeing 777 platform has improved in thrust only by 20% in the last 3 decades. This equates to an average of 6.6% growth per decade. Considering that the baseline 80% thrust was attained in about 5 decades prior its launch, this technological slowdown points to complacency in advancing alternatives to rockets. An average of 16% growth per decade was achieved in the early years than in the latter ones.

The development of the legendary SR 71 platform revived the quest for an alternative route, but for a while. Its secretive nature[6] and its politically motivated cancellation nipped the sprouting bud. Various attempts have been made since then to create alternatives by DARPA, NASA, US Air Force, and others, they have all floundered until recently.

The national security imperative balances the fulcrum between the political economy and the innovation programme. That was the case with the with the conceptual Mach 6+ Blackswift developed by Lockheed Martin (LM) at the time. Afterwards, the balance, however, titled towards the right and it was cancelled. An insight into what likely happened is provided by reading a book[7].

A shift in military doctrine from speed to stealth, was the likely reason. This resulted in LM being awarded the contracts for building the ground-breaking F22 and F35 fighter jets. And suggests that the Blackswift was cancelled as a result of a tactical financial consideration. The national security imperative, is however, shifting the balance back to the left. LM, demonstrating strategic foresight is aiming to build the Mach 6+ SR 72.

The expectation is that the military-civilian fusion embedded in the economy will create spill-overs for the civil aviation sector. So, the Surprise Hypersonia brings is manifested. Nonetheless, waiting for established companies to innovate could be putting all eggs in one basket. This is the time to promote entrepreneurship (‘start-up ship’).

 Incubates

Hypersonia offers a flourishing and fruitful future. The history of aerospace has been shaped by brave and visionary innovators; whose entrepreneurial motors have brought about transformations. From the Wright and Lockheed Brothers to Bill Lear, William Boeing and Frank Whittle, creative means have been found to invent airframes and engines. We need their sorts now.

Start-upship is not without its travails, but no engine in human history has created more growth and well-being. Vector, a rocket-based hypersonic start-up founded in 1991entered into bankruptcy in 2019, after it failed to win a DARPA-launched competition for rapid access to space. However, for one Vector, there are many other entrepreneurs and start-ups rising and flourishing. The British Reaction Engines is one. Astra, which won the DARPA challenge is another.

The failure of a start-up has many reasons. Finance, business environment, management, policy amongst others aside from technology are contributory factors. Alas, a start-up using 3D printing and inventing software-defined satellites has died. The ideas, inventions, and technologies it developed are not dying or disappearing, though. Lockheed Martin has bought certain parts of Vector’s assets and intellectual property (IP).

 As it goes, innovation is by combinations. Combining ideas, inventions, and technologies, and built by companies and organisations that are often a product of combinations. LM is what it is today because of combination. Boeing is a combination. Marquardt Corporation’s IPs are now combined with RocketdyneAerojet, which itself is a product of combinations.

Birthing innovations needs a combination of public and private actions.

 The development of hypersonic technologies so far has informed that government and military agencies have funded basic and applied research. And in conjunction with companies and start-ups, have developed and tested prototypes. Recently, the private sector is taking the lead in using the knowledge for developmental research – churning out advanced and useable products and services.

The development of a civilian hypersonic airliner urgently needs private investment and initiative. This requires advancing existing technologies and building new ones. Hypersonia is safe. The few and far in between Space Shuttle accidents were not due to returning hypersonic flying vehicles, but by exploding rocket engines that were poorly designed. This of course spurred further innovations which solved the problems and generated technologies that are useful today.

Private space companies have since drastically reduced the cost of lofting people and cargoes into space. So, the financial challenge that ended the operation of the Shuttle will gradually be solved as innovation advances and interests align. Space-Stratospheric and Military-Civilian Fusions combine the tactical and strategic needs of national & global wellbeing and security.

Problem-solving and institutional alignment will ensure advancing Hypersonia. Imagine flying high up and at high speed and browsing fast internet with connectivity provided by either terrestrial 5G and/or broadband satellite networks. Accessing documents and data, and crunching operational statistics with artificial intelligence and quantum computers from the Cloud. And breathing in nano-filtered and conditioned air, and eating bio-engineered food tailored to your personal medical and nutritional needs, printed by a fast 3D device.

This is the future that awaits us.

The progress being made by different companies and organisation in pursuit of high-speed flight is recognised. The aim is not belittling these advancements and efforts, but that there are possibilities. The future is not built by stretching the margins, but by scanning horizons and expanding our imaginations. Economies grow by advancing, building, diversifying, and expanding.

Innovation today scans and spans the nasoscope through to the megascope. The invasion of the corona virus is calling for innovations at, between and through cellular, contact, class, community, city, country, and continental levels. Hypersonia is incubating, but will grow through such in-situ, interstitial and interactional innovations.

 My Christian faith empowers me to believe and be optimistic. I have faith that COVID-19 will pass, and we will come into a place and time where and when Hypersonia will soar and succeed.

 God Bless & Jesus Cares!

 [1] The title of a movie about a fictitious disaster released in 2004.

[2] Joint USAF/NASA Hypersonic Research Aircraft Study

[3] A Study of Composite Propulsion Systems for Advanced Launch Vehicle Applications NAS 7-377.

[4] Twenty-First-Century Jet: The Making and Marketing of the Boeing 777 by Karl Sabbagh.

[5] Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions by Paul F. Crickmore.

[6] Reading Innovating in a Secret World: The Future of National Security and Global Leadership by Tina P. Srivastava is informative in this regard.

[7] Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and The Making of the Military-Industrial Complex by William D. Hartung.