{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "The land speed record stagnates at 1997.\nThis says more than it should.", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/671124627400146944/", "html": "

identicaltomyself:

kontextmaschine:

fruityyamenrunner:

heraldic-thunderbolt:

The land speed record stagnates at 1997.

This says more than it should.

all the new land speed records are like using solar power or whatever. that’s just the state at which transportation is at now – refinement

Well, the records went way past where pushing them further contributed anything to the development of land transport, or engineering in general (to the extent at this point they’re basically airspeed records with the oddball qualifier of being achieved in contact with the ground) and no one particularly wants to spend their money or passion on it

Is there a requirement of how much weight has to be on the wheels? If not, you could use a supersonic jet plane with a long extensible arm and a tungsten skate on the end of the arm. The jet flies at Mach 2, a few feet above the course, dragging the skate along the ground. The skate gets white hot, but as long as the wheels still spin we\u2019re OK.

The existing record holders are all jet propelled devices, which are not planes only because their designers expended effort to make sure the aerodynamic forces push down.

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Few feet off you’d be dealing with ground effect and weird interaction of the transsonic airflow with the ground

"}