NASA's X-43 team is preparing to have another crack at flying its tiny hypersonic aircraft at Mach 7 for 7s in 2003. The Hyper-X team admits that after one failure it "might seem like a lot of work to get just 7s of data, but you've got to see it in context. When the Wright Brothers collected 7s of data, they went 300ft, we're going to go 10 miles." Fair point. To balance the little craft the nose is packed with 860lb of tungsten ballast for stabilisation. "Makes one helluva lawn dart," comments NASA.
Source: Flight International