As Concorde goes, so do we - Have we humans peaked as a species?

[dArKeR]

I REMEMBER men in suits, my dad included, putting their fedoras in the overhead compartments. Very few women, besides my mom, seemed to be on the plane. Except for the stewardesses — yes, that’s what they were called, and called themselves, back then — who all wore white and red mini-dresses and kept coming over to where my parents and I were seated and pinching me.
They gave me a set of plastic wings, a package of bubble-gum cigarettes (imagine the lawsuits today!) and invited me into the cabin to sit in the pilot’s lap before we taxied out to the runway. Flying then transcended mere travel; it took a person into another dimension, and for me it provided a glimpse of the life led by the envied few known as “the jet set.”
No one knew it at the time, but the jet we flew in and the airline that flew it would be doomed, victims of the seemingly inexorable march of that thing we call “progress.”...

http://msnbc.com/news/983899.asp?0cv=CB20

We're definetly at an all time low under Bush's leadership but the Liberal Press won't be publishing that.

[alexwcovington]

1. Perhaps

We need some deep changes to how our society behaves if we're to keep moving forward.

Money is the primary motivator in our society and too many people see it as an end in itself. It's not. Rather, it is the progress we make...

[Sinistrous]

2. First the SR-71, now the Concorde.

Neither with a tecnologically equal replacement.

We seem to have peaked in some areas of endeavor.

[Wwagsthedog]

3. Brief history of manned flight in the past 100 years

1903 - First flight
1947 - Sound barrier broken
1961 - Man in space
1969 - Man on the moon
2003 - Russian Soyuz takes replacement crew to space station
???????????????

[Vitruvius]

4. Humanity hasn't peaked -- things just look bad because

we've got the Missing Link in the White House.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. The price of oil doomed the Concorde and it could doom us too.

I was watching a program on the Concorde on one of the cable channels a couple of nights ago. They mentioned that when the Concorde was initially being developed and major airlines all around the world were expressing interests in purchasing Concordes for their own supersonic fleets, the engineers working on the project were sure that the Concorde would be such a success that by the year 2000 there would be supersonic Concordes circling the globe and supersonic passenger travel would be the norm rather than the exception.

However, as this program explained it, the oil price shocks and rising oil prices of the 70's doomed that dream for ever. It takes way more energy to push an object through the air at Mach 2 (even one as streamlined as the Concorde) compared to the energy required to push and object through the air at Mach .8 or .85 (the approximate cruising speed of a subsonic passenger jet) and that energy had to come from burning massive amounts of increasingly expensive jet fuel.

The problem for us today is that if the Peak Oil theorists are correct and we are now at the point where world oil production is about to peak, oil production costs will climb dramatically as all the easily accessible oil is depleted and we have to expend more and more money and energy to get the remaining oil out of the ground. An increase in production costs will naturally be passed onto consumers, and oil prices within the next 10 to 20 years or so will start to rise significantly with no prospect that they will ever level off and stabilise for any significant length of time.

While some are counting on a switch to a hydrogen economy and alternative energy sources to save our bacon for us, as of now we have no sources of energy capable of playing a significant role in alleviating shortages caused by a decline in world oil production while we simultaneously face an exponential growth in demand.

Here's a couple of quotes from an interview with petroleum geologist Colin Campbell PhD

FTW: How soon before we start to feel the effects of dwindling oil supplies?

Campbell: We already are -- in the form of the threatened U.S. invasion of the Middle East. The U.S. would be importing 90 percent of its oil by 2020 to hold even current demand and access to foreign oil has long been officially declared a vital national interest justifying military intervention. Probable actual physical shortage of all liquid hydrocarbons worldwide won't appear for about 20 years, especially if deepening recession holds down demand. But people are coming to appreciate that peak is imminent and what it means. Some places like the U.S. will face shortage sooner than others. The price is likely to soar as shortage looms, which itself may delay peak.

<snip>

FTW: What about replacement sources and alternative energy? Tar sands?

Campbell: Of course there is a range of alternatives from wind, sun, tide, nuclear, etc. but today they contribute only a very small percentage, and do not come close to matching the oil of the past in terms of cost or convenience. No doubt production from tar sands and heavy oils can be stepped up in the future but it is painfully slow and expensive, carrying also environmental costs. It will help ameliorate the decline but has minimal impact on peak. The simple solution is to use less. We are extremely wasteful energy users. But it involves a fundamental change of attitude and the rejection of classical economic principles, which were built on endless growth in a world of limitless resources. Those days are over, exacerbated by the soaring population, itself now set to decline partly from energy shortage.


Campbell Interview

The significance of all this is that the author of the MSNBC piece As Concorde goes, so do we is making a very important point. The fate of the Concorde could very well be an omen for the fate of our ravenous, energy-hungry civilization if we don't smarten up and acknowledge that we have to get moving immediately on implementing energy conservation measures and researching, to a much greater extent than we currently are, ways of cutting our reliance on traditional fossil hydrocarbons.

For more info on Peak Oil and it's implications see www.peakoil.net www.hubbertpeak.com www.dieoff.org See also the many articles on this topic posted at www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/index.html#oil . Some of the articles require paying for a subscription, but many are free as well.

To view a Real Player video of a lecture presented by Colin Campbell at the University of Clausthal, Germany in Dec 2000 click here.

As a final note, while on vacation in Barbados and hanging out at my favorite local beach I have several times had the privilege of seeing the Concorde pass overhead as it took off from the Barbados airport about 3 miles away en route to London. It never failed to awe. It is hard to put into words the feeling of wonder and admiration that the aircraft inspires in your typical aircraft lover (like myself).

The thunder-like roar from the engine noise litterally shook our guts as the needle nosed arrow headed out over the ocean at a blindingly fast rate (compared to the everday Airbuses and 767's etc) and then quickly disappeared from sight, the deep, bass rumble from the engines lingering on and then gradually fading away even as the Concorde itself had passed out of sight. Oh well, all good things have to come to an end. Good bye Concorde. You'll be missed. :cry:

[karlschneider]

7. An amazing airplane. Mostly designed & built by ... uh, the French!!!!!!

Humph.
;-)

[eauclaireliberal]

6. RE: As Concorde goes, so do we - Have we humans peaked as a species?

I'm pretty sure that there are many more poignant things than SST.