Sound barrier on water?

Will it ever be possible?
We have broken it in the air and on land. The engineering barriers are immense, but I hope it happens in my lifetime.

www.bluebird-electric.net...

I'd sure like to see it in my lifetime. I do however think that with the advancements in carbon fiber tech. and other composite materials that have come on the market in the past few years, it may be achivalable for those who have the guts and pleanty of beer to go with it.

What about in water? What do you think that would look like? I think that would be a greater achievement and would be far more difficult.

Now that is a very interesting idea!! I would love to see it happen, but I doubt it. There must be plentym of physics buffs on here, maybe they can help.

I was watching Discovery Science channel yesterday and saw the first 'underwater aircraft'. It looked alot like an F1 racing car with no wheels. It wasnt considered a submersible because there was no ballast. They took aircraft wing design and turned the lifting surface from the bottom to the top. It was still very slow, but extremely manuverable. Ocean water is 1000 times more dense than air. You would have to make your craft paper thin to actually break that speed in the water.

I doubt there will be ever a body of natural water long enough and calm enough to possible break the sound barrier on water. The shockwave hitting the water could very easily destroy said craft.

As for underwater, you would have to have a needle prow and cigar shaped hull. Not to metion an incredibly strong hull to prevent cavatation

So what is the current speed record in space?

It pretty hard to break the sound brarrier in water.

Because the speed of sound in water is much much fast than air ( molecules and stuff you took way back ) as well as the resistance of water is very high compared to air.

The possiblity is very low to see it on you life time as well as the money and development envovled.

Originally posted by valkeryie
Will it ever be possible?
We have broken it in the air and on land. The engineering barriers are immense, but I hope it happens in my lifetime.

www.bluebird-electric.net...

The pods that fall from the sky and hit the water travel at speeds greater than the speed of sound. ie: The pod that brought Neil Armstrong back to earth from the moon.

I am still struggling to get my thoughts away from the question 'why'? Surely something at that speed would be much safer, efficient and comfortable being in the air?


The only reason I see is the same reason people climb mountains, and dogs lick their ba.......because they can.

[edit on 6-7-2005 by Strodyn]

The pods that fall from the sky and hit the water travel at speeds greater than the speed of sound. ie: The pod that brought Neil Armstrong back to earth from the moon.

I seriously do not believe Neil Armstrong or any of the other astronaunts hit the water going the speed of sound. They had parachutes on the landing modules, ever seen footage, they kinda floated down. Would have killed every last one of them otherwise.

Originally posted by Jehosephat
As for underwater, you would have to have a needle prow and cigar shaped hull. Not to metion an incredibly strong hull to prevent cavatation

Actually, cavitation or more specifically supercavitation can be desired and has been used to break the sound barrier under water using a specially designed projectile.

Current world record "on" water is 511kmh and is held by my fellow countryman Ken Warby. www.kenwarby.com...

An here is the America's soon to be attempt.
Pretty sweet boat.

www.americanchallengewsr.com...
The American Challenge Craft will be the most powerful, most revolutionary vehicle ever to attack the world water speed record.

American Challenge is a consortium of successful business leaders, innovative technical engineers, and motor-sport professionals focused on returning the World Water Speed Record to the United States. The American Challenge craft is designed to sustain speeds in excess of 400 mph. The current record of 317.6 has withstood all challenges since 1978.

Hope we keep making the records and challenging them again and again.
Maye a hydrofoil would work better.

Originally posted by Jehosephat
So what is the current speed record in space?

I thought it was Deep Space 1 using an ion drive, but apparently it only went 10,000mph at it's peek speed (relative to earth). For some reason, and I probably should blame some TV special I'd watched on discovery or space, that it was stated that the ion drive would achieve the fastest speed ever by an object made by man. (Which is probably likely, but I guess it hasn't achieved that yet.

The Pioneer 10 space craft achieved 32,400 mph for it's flight to jupiter, and then using Jupiter's gravity it sped up to 82,000 mph for it's flight out of the solar system. A few sites credit it as the fastest man made object, but because the question is interesting I'll probably look deeper into this.

Pioneer 10's speed relative to the Sun is 27,380 mph (12.24 km/sec). As a nifty peice of trivia: Pioneer 10 is heading away from our Sun generally in the direction of the red star Aldeberan. That's the main star seen as the eye of The Bull in the constellation Taurus in Earth's night sky. Aldebaran is about 68 light years away. Pioneer 10 should arrive at Aldeberan in 2 million years.

But then there's Galileo Probe's approach to Jupiter in 1995, "The Probe was the fastest man-made object ever. Decelerating from 106,000 to 250 mph in four minutes..." seems to be the fastest man made object ever.

So much info out there, so little time here.