Faster than a speeding bullet

On October 15, 1997, Andy Green became the first man to break the sound barrier in a car, driving the Thrust SSC supersonic car to 1223km/h (760mph).

A Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force in the UK, Green's world land speed record still stands today. But not for much longer if the affable mathematician-turned-rocket car driver has his way.

"That record has stood for 16 years. It's high time somebody did something about that," he said on a recent visit to Australia in his role as a Bentley ambassador. Officially known as a Mulsanne Visionary, Green had recently driven a stock standard Mulsanne limousine to 300km/h in the USA, which is no mean feat.

But it's clear his focus is on 2016, when he will try and crack 1609km/h (1000mph) behind the controls of an all-new rocket car. The $30 million Bloodhound SSC will be powered by three engines -- the smallest a 588kW (800hp) Cosworth F1 engine whose sole purpose is to pump 40 litres of fuel per second to the main engines, plus one jet and one rocket engine.

Green says the Bloodhound SSC, which generates 97,820kW (133,000hp) in total, will take to a dry lake bed in South Africa in 2015 for testing, with the world record attempt expected in 2016.

However, Green is not just battling physical limitations but other rivals around the world also looking to get into the record books. There are in fact four other teams working on breaking Green's 1997 land speed record.

"Steve Fossett's car is in the process of being bought by an American racing team and they plan to run it later on this year," says Green. "They're confident that within 12 months they can get it up to a sensible speed, if you regard this as sensible!”

Another US team, North American Eagle, is "at the other end of the technology scale".

"They're using a 1960s jet fighter they've pulled out of a scrap yard and cut the wings off and put wheels on,” he explains. “It's not the most sophisticated approach; it is a very low budget, very quick route to market but generating a huge amount of interest in the US.

"It's the classic hot-rod idea of taking whatever you've got and making use of it.”

Another team in New Zealand is working on what he says is a "sophisticated car" but Green reckons its biggest problems are financial and geographical.

And then there's Aussie contender, Rosco McGlashan. The West Australian drag racer has driven the world's fastest go-kart (rocket-powered, naturally) at 407km/h (253mph), but it’s his 18 metre long Invader 5R rocket car that Green admits “is probably leading the pack right now”.

Green says he met with Perth-based McGlashan recently to talk about breaking the record and though the Aussie's rocket motor needed work, he’s the most likely of the contenders to get a result.

"I'd really love to see him compete with us," says Green.

While Green has settled on a 20km long dry lake in South Africa, he says "a huge dry lake bed out in the middle of Queensland" was also considered for the attempt.

While McGlashan's Invader 5R should have more power than Green's Bloodhound SSC, to the tune of about 147,100kW (200,000hp), it doesn't have the corporate or financial backing of Green’s UK-based project, which has Rolls-Royce and EuroJet working on the jet engine.

"We have one of the world's leading jet engines from the Eurofighter, which gives us nine tonnes of thrust, we've also got a rocket to gives it an extra 12 tonnes of thrust," says Green, who reveals that signing Rolls-Royce to work on the jet engine was a coup for the project.

"Having them as a technical partner and sponsor is brilliant. They have never sponsored a land speed record before so actually having them involved means an awful lot to us and the other sponsors."

But arguably the most important factor is the rocket motor, as it's necessary to push the Bloodhound SSC past 1200km and onto 1600km/h.

"We're building our own hybrid rocket motor," he says. "It's a hybrid rocket with solid fuel liquid oxidiser, the same rocket technology Virgin Galactic is using for commercial spaceflight. It's throttle-able and it's also relatively safe.

"If I'm going to strap myself to a quarter tonne of fuel, I'm very happy for it to be non-explosive!”

However, Green admits getting the Bloodhound SSC to 1600km/h will be “extraordinarily difficult”.

“It's out there on the edges of known technology. It’s going to be a major challenge... we don’t know all of the answers yet, that's part of the point of it."

So with all the challenges, the risks, and the costs, why do it? Green insists it's a great big adventure, which he hopes will inspire a new generation of mathematicians, engineers and scientists.

"It’s about human endeavour. You don’t take a helicopter to the top of Mount Everest to have a look at the view. People still climb up there," he explains.

"The world doesn’t need to go to the shops at 1600km/h. What we do need is for people to build bridges and desalination plants and IT and transport infrastructure for the future.

“How are we going to capture the imagination of those eight and 10 and 12 year old kids, and make them alive to the magic of science and engineering?”

The world's fastest car, that's how.

"I've been the Captain of the Cresta team for five years," says Green of his ice skeleton racing hobby. So which is scarier, driving a land speed record car or hurling down an ice-shute?

"I find it more nerve-wracking doing the Cresta because the risk of physical injury frankly is higher,” he explains. “As a technical specialist and a trained mathematician, I find the science and engineering wholly captivating, and the sport more out of my comfort zone."

"Every policeman in the world wants to stop me and give me a ticket,” he laughs. “I'm absolutely determined to deny them the pleasure.”

While denying ever having a major run in with police, he did concede having an overdue speeding fine...

"The only significant speeding ticket I've ever had is the world's largest. Black Rock Desert is actually government land and back in 1997 I was 716 miles per hour [1152km/h] over the speed limit and they did actually write me a ticket.

"I still haven't paid it.”

"Roughly $US30 million total end to end,” says Green about the Thrust SSC attempt.

“If you don't have $30 million it seems an unbelievably large amount of money. If you do have $30 million, that's what McLaren F1 Team spent last month not winning any races. And by next Tuesday no one will care what McLaren did last week.

"We are looking for the same sort of money to develop not only a global engineering adventure that has a following of tens of millions, we're actually aiming for a legacy that will make science and engineering more fun and interesting for the next generation."

As well as corporate sponsorship from the likes of Rolex, Lockheed Martin and Cisco, Green has also raised money from 15,000 fans so far who’ve paid $20 each to hopefully be a part of history.

“Twenty bucks Australian and you can put your name on the tail fin and it'll go to 1600km one day, and be there forever,” he says. “We've got room for about another 80,000, but it's filling up quickly.”

Smashing the Internet record

The Bloodhound SSC team will be beaming the world land speed record attempt around the world live, and it could just break the Internet.

"We've been told to expect -- the year we start running -- by Cisco, a web capacity of three billion page views," says Green. In comparison, Felix Baumgartner's Red Bull-sponsored tropospheric space dive attracted around nine million page views in October 2012.

"The live video feed has to go offshore from South Africa into the cloud globally. If we try and run it from a South African web server, we would crash the national infrastructure of the Internet.”

While likely to be “one of the big internet events”, Green admits that due to the unpredictable nature of the internet, “a guy from Korea with a funny dance could massively outperform us”.

"The funny dance won't last that long but 10 years from now people will still be talking about the technology in the world's fastest car. That's what we're aiming to achieve, that long time legacy."

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