Chinese Scramjet Tech / Iranians given US Tech

At the recent American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Joint Propulsion Conference in Cincinnati, engineers from several Chinese research facilities presented about a dozen papers on Chinese scramjet initiatives.

The papers were a virtual intel download on current and future Chinese missile technology and hypersonic scramjet technology.

Experts who have seen the papers were impressed with the Chinese delegation's use of technology - particularly in attempting hybrid propulsion methods and fuels.

While this is a very interesting story, one thing just bothers the hell out of me...

The Sharif University of Technology and the KNT Technical University, both in Tehran submitted papers as well and as participants, have access to all of the highly detailed U.S. aircraft and rocket propulsion presentations made at the conference.

Those subject included but were not limited to the technology behind the D-21 ramjet drone, and various rocket motor designs.

One must ask, is the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics NUTS?

... And people get mad at me about starting a thread about the "Blackswift" (SR-72) program.
Jeez!


Source:
China Developing Scramjet Propulsion: Aviation Week, Sept. 2, 2007

If i've understood it correctly scramjets and ramjets as a technology / design are widely available in the academic world. The difficoulty lies more in control systems and manufacturing. Because the designs need special materials and thos materials tend to be very hard to process, achieving required tolerances is a burden even to the best high tech plants in the western world. So i doubt that the designs alone will allow anyone to gain any significant advantages. But then again I could be wrong... i've been before

Having attended and presented at the 2006 JPC, specifically in the scramjet/hypersonics section, I can vouch that nothing classified or non-suitable for the public domain is presented in open sessions.

Originally posted by intelgurl
One must ask, is the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics NUTS?

Maybe, but you don't believe that politicians and weapons manufacturers care about the lives of soldiers and regular people do you? You have to remember that arming both sides in a conflict doubles profits! It also makes for more destruction and bigger rebuilding contracts afterwards. It's also a ploy as old as dirt or at least the Rothschild's rise to power.
.

Intelgurl, I really didn't mean to upset you with my comment on the other thread. I guess I'm not really mad, just overly cautious.

Anyway there's a big difference between the presentation of academic papers and basic research and an inside source disclosing information about a black program.

The science behind scramjets is not really that horribly advanced...get a craft going fast enough, have a jet engine of the correct size and shape that can funnel air at very high velocities which can subsequently be ignited. It's just incredibly expensive to produce a craft which can do this.

China doesn't have the money to do this, and in my opinion, they don't have a compelling reason to develop the technology, either. China's interests are primarily tactical (i.e., within 500 miles of its borders) whereas the scramjet is exclusively a strategic weapon. If China were foolish enough to wage intercontinental war, they would risk the full and ugly wrath of the United States.

Originally posted by Nipples
Having attended and presented at the 2006 JPC, specifically in the scramjet/hypersonics section, I can vouch that nothing classified or non-suitable for the public domain is presented in open sessions.

And your name lends shuch creadablity. Sorry I couldn't help it

Originally posted by mtmaraca
Intelgurl, I really didn't mean to upset you with my comment on the other thread. I guess I'm not really mad, just overly cautious.

Anyway there's a big difference between the presentation of academic papers and basic research and an inside source disclosing information about a black program.

Being sorry is a start but you havent been around long enough to know how seriously she takes posting and protecting any info that she may know or guess at. Also you could be sure that if something got leaked that was a security issue it would be taken down. Its happen quite a few times before.

Thanks for taking part just be careful thats all

Originally posted by mtmaraca
Intelgurl, I really didn't mean to upset you with my comment on the other thread. I guess I'm not really mad, just overly cautious.

No problem - I'm over it - I had my rant and I'm done.

As for the Iranians having access to the transcripts and white papers presented - even if the contents are open source it still bothers me. Not so much because of the scramjet tech presented but because of the detailed rocket motor designs presented.

Originally posted by intelgurl
No problem - I'm over it - I had my rant and I'm done.

As for the Iranians having access to the transcripts and white papers presented - even if the contents are open source it still bothers me. Not so much because of the scramjet tech presented but because of the detailed rocket motor designs presented.

Nah, I gotta disagree with you there.


The vast majority of AIAA papers I've read are far too vague, and all too often the geometries of a body used for testing are glossed over all together.

So if you cannot recreate the initial experiment, there is often very little you can learn from it.

A materials science conference might be different, I dunno, I know nothing about them really.



Besides, as nipples says, there is nothing really sensitive unveiled at these conferences. The military R&D position is always well in advance of academia as regards known defense concepts.

You can actually read alot of the papers on the internet and in other publications - scientists are the bane of governments and military - they are proud of achievements and want to share them with others - whilst the `establishment` want to put a lid on things.

what would be discussed would be things like thermo dynamics at high speeds etc and all parties would be interested in seeing other scientists approachs to a common problem


i honestly hope , intelgurl , you haven`t been bitten by the `bogeyman` the establishment is trying to make out of Iran. But , it does read otherwise and for that i`m saddened.

Canada_EH: Touche'

uberarcanist: I have to disagree on the 'simplicity' of scramjet technology. Developing a robust engine-inlet-exhaust system that is hypersonic capable over the flight envelope with a good resistance to unstart and which is survivable (extremely important) is no easy task. The generic principle behind a scramjet is surely easy ... flightspeed/ram-air-effect provides the compression in place of a traditional axial or centrifugal compressor, then add energy to the flow through combustion and expand the flow out the back ... tah dah! This breezes over the enormously complex problems of supersonic fuel-air mixing and combustion, efficient control of a highly complex supersonic flowfield into/through/out-of the engine, and cooling the propulsion system such that it is survivable beyond a few minutes of test time. Each one of these problems is massively difficult and each one must be solved simultaneously for the end-product to be a useable propulsion system and these problems cannot be solved by a simple download of publicly available papers and dumping cash in the furnace.

In my opinion anything can be solved with enough motivation. For example if you take the worlds best biochemists and stick them in an internally locked room and tell them that they have a few days to come up with a repellent for the world's deadliest chemicals and neuro-toxins before the room itself is injected with that which they are trying to repel, well they obviously die.

Money... money is good too. I guess money would be a better and humane way of furthering one's technological advancement.

I'm a firm believer of "if you give enough money, it will be done." (Hence the Manhattan Project).

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
In my opinion anything can be solved with enough motivation. For example if you take the worlds best biochemists and stick them in an internally locked room and tell them that they have a few days to come up with a repellent for the world's deadliest chemicals and neuro-toxins before the room itself is injected with that which they are trying to repel, well they obviously die.

Money... money is good too. I guess money would be a better and humane way of furthering one's technological advancement.

I'm a firm believer of "if you give enough money, it will be done." (Hence the Manhattan Project).

Shattered OUT...

Sorry ShatteredSkies, but I think you might have watched the movie 'Armageddon' a couple of times too many.

If only life were so simple. Money is only required because humans make it so. We charge for everything - the more necessary it is to life the more 'profit' we can make from it. Whatever is in short supply we charge one another the most for. Water was once free (when it was plentiful), but now that it is not so plentiful, the price begins to rise. How long will it be before we are charged for the air we breathe?

In the current case we are talking about brain power, and original ideas to solve a problem - once again in short supply - and therefore very costly.

But your basic assumption is incorrect anyway, evidence the lack of a cure for cancer, AIDS, etc or the inability of (arguably) the richest country on earth to stem the flow of drugs onto its streets and into its schools. Obviously (or apparently not so obviously to some) throwing money at problems doesn't work.

Money, of itself, is not the answer. It is merely the tool that humanity has used to sink to its current low level. Anyone who does want to fight the real on-going enemies of humanity such as disease, has to prostrate themselves before those who wish only to make profit, before they can have any effect. No matter how many lives they may save, their work will not be funded unless the profit is obvious to the 'money people'.

One thing that was mentioned above was the current 'bogeyman'. It doesn't really matter which 'bogeyman' it is - it is quite evident at the moment that the US wants (requires?) a 'bogeyman' of some sort. If one is defeated (even though the job is incomplete - Afghanistan, Iraq) then the search is on for the next one (North Korea, Iran and apparently China after that).

Excuse my cynicism, but obviously there must be a lot of 'profit' for the US in having an enemy.

Oh, yes, the often claimed 'moral high ground' - explain to me, people, the morality of profit at the expense of humanity?

The Winged Wombat

Yeah what ever, we are allowed our opinions.

Shattered OUT...

Lest we not forget the USAF did lose a few D-21 drones over China (perhaps more who knows) and some of that technology also may have fallen into ChiCom hands as well.

Im not surprised that the Iranians have and are interested in the technology. The thought of trying to defend against a hypersonic weapon fired at ships in the Persian Gulf is enough to make anybody in a white uniform lose sleep.