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It's very hard for me to imagine a world in which scramjet technology is both useful for commercial travel, and impossible to develop without massive government
by BobbyJo 5y ago
It's very hard for me to imagine a world in which scramjet technology is both useful for commercial travel, and impossible to develop without massive government funding. It seems to me like technology needs to reach a point that it can be developed entirely commercially before it can be made safely and consistently enough enough for commercial passengers.
Take rockets for instance. Technology had to catch up to make them commercially viable to develop before they were commercially viable to operate.
- bobthepanda 5y agopretty much all of air travel had direct government subsidy in the form of postal contracts in its early days and later price controls. automakers also had a huge subsidy in the form of the massive capital expenditure on highways that were free to use. developing technologies at taxpayer expense for strategic purposes is nothing new. if private airlines were left to their own devices we probably won't ever move away from the basic shape of subsonic, fossil-fueled jet travel. as it is, the airplane manufacturer duopoly is half kept afloat by defense spending, and it remains to be seen whether or not the full financial cost of 737MAX will result in requiring taxpayer bailout.
- speedybird 5y agoBut afaik all the airplanes used for the earliest demonstrations of airmail were privately funded/constructed. The minimum viable airplane for airmail was within grasp of skilled fabricators working out of their garages; the big government contracts came later. This is world's apart from scramjet tech.