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I am not as pessamistic as Pork Pie on the future of the ultimate or
absolute world record. There are three teams working on cars - two well
advanced on build and one on the finalised design. And thats only those in
the public domain.
Only by listening to the Thrust SSC publicity would anyone think that
efforts to break the outright land speed record may now be over, as the
sound barrier has been breached. On this basis of argument one must wonder
why do people keep climbing Everest, or each high mountain peak on each of
the major continents or all of the top ten highest peaks in the World?
After all someone has been there before you and planted a flag.
There may be limits set by funding projects of this scale, but the car (if
indeed it is a car next time) need not be that expensive to build in
material or labour terms. The major cost will be in design, testing,
trials, travel to a place having 'found' the right surface and distance,
camping out for a long period of time and the list goes on. After all at
Mach 1.1 and above you have to do as Ron Ayres says - "build a safe vehicle
then make it go fast".
Malcolm Pittwood, Derby, England
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