Bloodhound SSC Into Administration

Bugger 😥

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45838994

It’s been going on for ages and been wondering whether it’s worth the achievement. Millions spent, decade developing it, smash a record racing across some lake bed for a few seconds, that’s it.

Seems to me like it’s stated educational aim of showing kids what it’s like working in cutting edge technology and engineering in the uk, is now finally complete…. sad news.

Guess the final step is for a foreign company to buy all the intellectual property and make a fortune from it and then we are done…

They only need a mere £25m!

Sad but if there was real value in any IP to be obtained / commercialised I’m sure the pre-existing sponsors would have contributed more funding, Geely especially. Looks like a passion project with limited commercial / marketing value.

I loved watching / reading about the Thrust projects as a kid but as a layman this just seems to be similar, but strapping a bigger / more jets to the back. Can any engineers comment as to real innovation / advances between this and the last Thrust beyond speed? Genuinely interested.

Based in part in Didcot. The guys there were really good at getting local groups involved.

They only need a mere £25m!

Perhaos they could ask Luke Johnson? He apparently spent £10M last week on coffee and cakes.

does this mean the administrators will sell it off cheap?

What’s it like as a daily driver?

Perhaos they could ask Luke Johnson? He apparently spent £10M last week on coffee and cakes.

I’m not sure bloodhound could do doughnuts.

And in fairness he spent 10 million on not flushing his existing 165 million down the pan.

And in fairness he spent 10 million on not flushing his existing 165 million down the pan

Yep, PV is probably still a viable business, whereas SSC is just a massive waste of money.

I was thinking, if I had a few hundred million would I spend £25 million on this? The answer I came to was probably not as you could put £25 million to much better charitable use than this. And this is coming from someone who normally loves stuff like this.

They only need a mere £25m!

Surely Halfords can step in 🙂

if they really are as close as the beeb make out, I’m surprised the govt can’t find it down the back of the DUPs sofa – given we need all the positive news about the UK we can get, and in comparison to the money spent on other stuff.

I think this would be a great project for the Tory Government to show just how Great Britain is post Brexit.

that’s it

Erm, no. This has always been a vehicle about engaging children and youf in STEM.

strapping a bigger / more jets

No, no, no, this one has a ROCKET. 😀

I think this would be a great project for the Tory Government to show just how Great Britain is post Brexit.

It’s not like this government (or any other in my life time for that matter) is short of hugely expensive, pointless and inevitably doomed vanity projects is it?

if I had a few hundred million would I spend £25 million on this? The answer I came to was probably not as you could put £25 million to much better charitable use than this.

that is probably what most potential investors/sponsor are thinking unfortunately. Not necessarily that a charitable use would be better, more that awkward questions would be asked i.e. why are you spunking £25m on a rocket car 😀 Needs an Elon Musk type who DGAF to step in!

Although I guess, despite what is being reported, £25m would merely be the tip of the iceberg and this is basically a bottomless black hole of a project!

I completely agree it’s a money pit with highly questionable benefits, but I do find this kind of thing fascinating. (My name is on the tail fin)

it also comes 21yrs to the day since Thrust ssc broke the record

I met Andy Green at party once. Really nice guy.

Erm, no. This has always been a vehicle about engaging children and youf in STEM.

Yes and no. That’s the business justification but really it’s a driven by their challenge to break their own record. Even with the educational project it’s not really that inspiring a project. The technology isn’t that revolutionary. It’s been done, just it’s a load of tweaks to go faster, and can’t see much benefit beyond what they’re trying to achieve here.

Musk on the other hand is doing inspirational stuff. I just wish he wasn’t such a **** and his projects a little less pie in the sky and more realistic and professional (concentrate on getting manned flight by a private company into orbit being safe and reliable first, not man to Mars in some risky project, not just yet, and stop shoving cars into space, which incidentally failed to get into planned orbit).

And in fairness he spent 10 million on not flushing his existing 165 million down the pan

Yep, PV is probably still a viable business, whereas SSC is just a massive waste of money.

Yup, I was just being flippant; perhaps it could be good PR for the Saudis to step in? Would also help with the fuel bills.

I’m sure Mike Ashley has been on the blower.

BloodSports Direct SSC has a certain pervasive ring to it.

Branson’s got a few quid and likes to have fun.

Doubt they’ll get anyone else to fund it if he doesn’t want in on the project.

it also comes 21yrs to the day since Thrust ssc broke the record

Jesus! I can remember it like yesterday (badly, through an alcohol induced haze.).

Obviously a carefully chosen date for the announcement to get the jingoistic purses a jangling.

To be honest they have been at it for so long with marginal intremental gains that didn’t inspire like they hoped to.

Shame really, we had Richard Noble in work some years ago and was every bit as caresmatic (sp) as you’d expect. On the other hand i tried to get them to work when the project set off and they were only interested in schools at the time.

With the car running recently i did think things were moving on.

I expect Branson would want to change the tail fin graphics. It’s a bit BA at the moment.

I can imagine there’s a lot of companies who look at this as a potential PR disaster waiting to happen and that the risk outweigh the potential gains. This thing really is a rocket sled on wheels and no amount of simulations is going to tell them how this thing will really operate at those speeds.

With that in mind I really believe it’s going to come down to a personal deal rather than corporate.

Best of luck to the team and all involved, it’s a truly noble (natch) endeavour and I wish them every success with getting it funded and breaking the record.

This is a real shame. The project may not have been set up to inspire STEM in kids, but this is a welcome side effect. If successful I reckon the financial benefit to the long term future of engineering is worth £25 million x100. It may be a champagne project, but it is one with short term tangible gains and has the ‘sex appeal’ that engineering needs. It’s success may have been a question mark, however having followed its progress I think caution was the watchword.

I am all ears to other suggestions that may be contenders to inspire 10-15 year olds to get into engineering in the way Bloodhound could.

I am all ears to other suggestions that may be contenders to inspire 10-15 year olds to get into engineering in the way Bloodhound could.

To be honest, I think the precision engineering in, say, a Hope hub or a Cotic frame is a more accessible way for kids to get in to STEM subjects, with more relevance for the modern world. There are numerous technologies in modern bikes with applications elsewhere (carbon fibre, battery technologies, paints, oils/lubricants, tyre compounds etc etc).

As a hook into engineering northernsoul I would disagree. If you can show a typical 9 year old a video of Cotic frame construction and explain precision engineering and hope that hooks them better than seeing technicians whooping and hollering at the sound of a sonic boom created by a car kicking up dust by skipping across the desert at 1000mph then I want to see that video. I recently went to a lecture on materials by a fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, who was talking and had examples of some of the material used in Bloodhound and their practical uses. It was exciting.

Overall, I would answer 2 key points. Do I think Bloodhound would be successful with a cash injection of £25 million? I would say yes based on what I have seen so far.

Do I think that it would be £25 million well spent? Without a shadow of a doubt yes!!

I agree that “seeing technicians whooping and hollering at the sound of a sonic boom created by a car kicking up dust by skipping across the desert at 1000mph” would enthuse many 9 year olds, but most will never be able to witness that first hand – only on video. On the other hand, a trip to the LBS (or even their parents bike shed) will enable any 9 year old pick up and feel the weight, rigidity etc of a set of carbon bars, to feel how smooth and well engineered a bearing is and so on. As a teenager I spent many summer holidays dismantling, cleaning, greasing and reassembling bits of my bike – not just because I loved cycling, but because I could, even on the modest income we had.

My original love of engineering was sparked partly by taking things apart to see how they worked but also by seeing video of Thrust II doing it’s record run.  The image of it appearing out of the heat haze with a mahoosive plume of dust behind it is stuck in my head for life!  I only got to see the car in person last year, together with Thrust SSC, and it’s scary what they achieved with what is now very dated technology.  Thrust 2 is basically a giant skateboard with a jet engine on the back!

So yes, this project should live on to inspire future generations if possible.  Mine and my father’s name are on the tailfin so I’ve put my money where my mouth is on this too, his was as a birthday present and he loved it.  If they have another rond of crowdfunding I’ll chip in again.

The problem is that whilst it might be a great project, it has no relevance to the modern world.  What are the eco-credentials of driving at 1000mph using a rocket?  Attitudes have changed a lot since the project was incepted and I think kids would be more enticed by projects such as fastest electric vehicle, or longest range on a solar power.  Burning rocket fuel just isn’t cool anymore.

If you think a 9 year old is going to give a stuff about a bike next to a jet/rocket car you clearly don’t know much about kids. The appreciation you describe only comes from technical knowledge which I doubt most adults have never mind their kids.

Accessible they may be but exciting they are not.

What has relevance to the modern world got to do with anything? It’s about inspiring kids into STEM subjects and you do that by getting them interested and they are interested in pushing the boundaries – the sexy end of things, not windmills or solar panels. Contrary to some comments on this thread so far suggesting this is just a simple case of strapping big jet engine to a kart with little technical content, this is actually properly pushing the boundaries of our fundamental understanding of aerodynamics and a lot of other areas in engineering and Physics. Why do you think it’s taken so long and cost so much so far? Most of the kit was donated for free so the material cost of the actual car is basically nothing – all that money has been sunk into proper R&D, which will have many spin off applications and be stepping stones in understanding to other technological aims and endeavours going forward. Look how many spin-off technologies from the space race we now take for granted…Velcro, non-stick frying pans, pens that write upside down – yes I know the Ruskies used pencils but where is the fun in that?

It’s sad that people can’t see any benefit in this type of thing. The thing about breaking the speed record is just the tip of the iceberg of the overall benefits.

If people think something like this is pointless then what about many other human endeavours such as art, music, climbing mountains, sailing around the world and a whole host of other things which are done just because we can and it’s exciting and impressive. What a miserable world some people would have us live in if they had their way.

yes I know the Ruskies used pencils but where is the fun in that?

Myth. Why would you want (conductive) graphite floating around your spaceship?

I too listened to a speech by Richard Noble when I worked at Castrol. He was impassioned by the history and proud of engineering in GB. As he put it, if we stop making things we’ll just be ‘a country that does each others washing.’

I know what he means.

Maybe Dyson should sponsor? It’s a big blowing thing after all!

It’s a shame, but I suspect if someone did give them another £25m, they’d be right back here 2/3 later only needing another £25m.

As others have said whilst it’s really cool, and has lots of benefits in enthusing kids, it doesn’t really have much real world applications, they’re taking existing rocket / jet tech and applying it to a ‘ground’ vehicle. It’s old school thinking, it’s Concorde that gets you to NYC in 6 hours when you can Skype immediately.

I think the education angle is used as justification for what is basically a technical Everest that these people want to climb. Don’t misunderstand me, I want them to climb it too, I think its a great thing. But saying its “primary purpose” is to educate and get kids interested smacks of “Balls, we need dosh, how are we going to leverage more funding/interest?” “Oh lets push the education angle and get some funding that way” – Which yes is a great thing, and any govt funding for this type of thing should guarantee access for the public to see and interact. But its a bit of a sham to say that is its main purpose. It isn’t, its purpose is to be insanely fast and see how far we can go, and see how we can develop and showcase new technology/IP for Brand Britain. An excellent reason for this project. 25M seems cheap.

I think the education angle is used as justification for what is basically a technical Everest that these people want to climb.

But you could just skype to a webcam on top of everest, it’s basically the same thing* in the modern world isn’t it?

The problem is that whilst it might be a great project, it has no relevance to the modern world.  What are the eco-credentials of driving at 1000mph using a rocket?  Attitudes have changed a lot since the project was incepted and I think kids would be more enticed by projects such as fastest electric vehicle, or longest range on a solar power.  Burning rocket fuel just isn’t cool anymore.

If the idea of a car with a jet engine and three rockets strapped to an oversized go-kart doesn’t get you at least a little excited then you need to reconnect with your inner 8 year old!

*it’s not

If you think a 9 year old is going to give a stuff about a bike next to a jet/rocket car you clearly don’t know much about kids

If you think most 9 year olds are going to give a stuff about a project which might deliver when they’re 18 next to a thing they can hold/play with now you clearly don’t know much about kids.

I’m not of the internet instant gratification age but I’m a geek and i was exactly the age you’re looking at when the channel tunnel was being built. I was interested on day 1, i was bored by the end of week one. I was quite excited when i saw the engineers leaning through the hole and shaking hands at completion, that project had real world application (and trains) but all the stuff in between had zero interest or relevance to me, as a kid you’re not interested in 6 months of research to find out which tail fin will keep a rocket car on the ground best, you’re interested in rocket cars.

If the idea of a car with a jet engine and three rockets strapped to an oversized go-kart doesn’t get you at least a little excited then you need to reconnect with your inner 8 year old!

If the idea of developing one does appeal to you you need to realise it’s because you’re an anorak wearing old man.