Question: 1. Where abouts is the experiment going to take place? 2. Wouldnt the friction melt the aluminum tyres while accelerating? 3.What other meathods are you going to use to slow down the car other than a parachute? 4.How will you ensure the driver inside the car is safe during the 20 seconds experiments? 5.How may g's (g force) will the car driver experiance and what protection will he be wearing to prevent an injury?

Hywel Vaughan answered on 18 Jun 2010:

Wow spaceinvaders, that’s a lot of questions! Glad to see that you are really thinking about it all. Lets see here…
1) Where – We shall be running the car at a place called Hakskeen Pan in the Northern Cape of South Africa
2) Wheels – The wheel is solid aluminium, and will be spinning at 10,000RPM with a force on the outside of 50,000 radial G. This isn’t enough to melt the wheel, but aluminium and titanium are the only two metals that we could realistically use for them.
3) Braking – Apart from parachutes, we are also using airbrakes. These are large panels that come out into the airstream to slow the car down – they make the drag higher by basically making the car bigger. There are also used on aircraft on the wings.
4) Safety – Each run actually takes 90 seconds – 42 seconds of acceleration and the rest is taken up by the braking. The driver is kept inside a ‘safety cell’, a section of the car that is highly impact resistant. He is also strapped securely in and the car is designed to be stable all the way from 0 to Mach 1.4 (1050mph).
5) G – Andy Green will experience negative 3 G whilst accelerating and positive 2.5 G whilst decelerating. This will suck the blood from his feet towards his head, then suddenly pull that blood back down to his feet again. He will only have the training he has undergone to cope with this, we will not be using a G suit! Andy will however be wearing fire resistant clothing and safety helmet etc to protect him.

And… breathe. Hope that answered everything! 😀