0-60 in 1.25 seconds

[Stick Insect]

The power unit was (get this) a booster from an old Apollo lunar module.
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Reminds me of this story...

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1995-04.html

David

[Audi_CQ]

Reminds me of this story...

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1995-04.html

David

....which was busted by the mythbusters (Discovery Channel)

[S2central.net]

OK now that's insane...

I've stood alongisde some of those rocket 'motors' at Kennedy Space Center recently - seriously impressive when you see how much hand made fabrication and welding that goes into one of those things. I have some sad nerdy pictures if anyone cares....

The Saturn motors are just jaw dropping and it never occured to me until the visit that the long thin shape of the Saturn (and similar) rockets is just a vaguely aerodynamic way of packaging huge tanks of LOX (liquid oxygene) and kerosene (IIRC) to keep the thing burning long enough to get where you wanna go.

Seriously scarey stuff - you simply don't appreciate it until you see it in the flesh - I don't understand the science behind rocket or jet engines so maybe that's why I'm so awestuck.


Paul

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Rockets - they ain't rocket science! Just like an overgrown firework - particularly in "solid rocket" format. They use solid (i.e. powdered) fuels exactly as per the stuff used on November 5th / July 4th etc. - except it tends to be aluminium powder and other fun materials. Liquid fueled rockets are largely the same but require injection to release the fuels. Miller's car ran on hydrogen peroxide, and the vast majority of it's exhaust was steam. The liquid rockets can be re-used whereas the solid fuel types burn out just like a firework and are basically thrown away after they are spent.

But to reiterate, with a rocket you are literally lighting the blue touchpaper and getting the hell out of the way!

As for jets, they're easier than pistons! The most common format is the turbo-jet which uses a series of fans on a common shaft. At the front is the intake with big turbines to draw the air in, further back are the compression stages, smaller fans in a restriction of the tubular body. Fuel is injected into the hot airstream during the compression stages, ignites, and the gases expand - pushing out towards the rear, generating thrust. As they go, they rotate a set of turbine fans to keep the shaft turning - rather like a turbocharger. Further injection of fuel in the hot stream at the back (after burning) can dramatically increase the amount of thrust.

Either way you're generating a column of thrust to react against the column of relatively still air behind the power source. In many respects cars that use thrust are technically safer as you cannot spin the wheels.

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