Bloodhound SSC, the British effort to build a 1000 mph supersonic car, is set to be wound up, with administrators failing to find a buyer to secure the project’s future.
Founded in 2007 by Richard Noble and Andy Green (who set the existing land speed record of 763.035 mph with ThrustSSC back in 1997) the project had aimed to hit speeds of 1000 mph at a specially built, 18km long, 1500m wide race track at Hakskeen Pan in the deserts of the Northern Cape of South Africa.
As previously reported by The Engineer, the car had been almost fully completed. Last year (October 2017) it completed a series of 200mph test runs at Cornwall’s Newquay airport and the vehicle was soon to begin higher speed runs in South Africa.
According to BBC reports, the team has now failed to find the £25m needed to provide guaranteed funding, exit administration and see the project to completion.
“We have worked tirelessly with the directors to identify a suitable individual or organisation who could take the project forward,” said joint administrator Andrew Sheridan. “Despite overwhelming public support, and engagement with a wide range of potential and credible investors, it has not been possible to secure a purchaser for the business and assets.
“We will now work with key stakeholders to return the third-party equipment and then sell the remaining assets of the company to maximise the return for creditors.”
The project had operated on a partnership and sponsorship model, with support from a variety of partners including Rolls-Royce and Rolex as well as the Ministry of Defence which has lent prototype jet engines for the car, and the Northern Cape Provincial Government in South Africa, which has supported the creation of the track. Individual donations from members of the public have also supported the development of the car and the global education programme.
I do hope someone steps up to the mark here…Rolls Royce maybe, I attended engineering course with them guys when I was a young engineer, they are the future of engineering. It would be a colossal loss to engineering if this does not continue.
Or maybe Richard Branson can step up and get the fastest virgin in the west!
1000mph or bust, eh?
Plenty of easy jokes to make here, but this is a pity.
Well yet again it seems British engineering and innovation is to be literally stopped in its tracks, pardon the pun, by lack of investment. All too often we hear rhetoric from politicians from all parties waxing lyrical about how we should show more national pride in British engineering and its many successes and here we have one on the cusp of greatness flagging for the want of money.
It seems to be the rule with British investors (both corporate and private) – “funding is available but we want a quick return on our investment”. Always SHORT-TERMINISM.
It went on and on.. Is a land speed record really exciting now? Not much innovation really engendered or commercialised? An inevitable outcome?
Compare it with the promise of Reaction Engines Ltd, or Peak AI Ltd and I’m not sure it was worth very much in the end.
This was/is much, much more than an attempt at a new World Land Speed record for the UK. It includes a massive education programme for schools, both here in the UK and abroad, aimed at engendering enthusiasm for STEM subjects, with several hundred schools signed up to it and making use of the educational kits and events that the Bloodhound team has created over the past few years. For that reason alone it deserves to go on and succeed, with the icing on the cake being a new world record for the UK.
I couldn’t agree more, the event was interesting but was very commercialised. Talked about how loats of people had to pick stones off the track, that wasn’t very technically advanced.
Bloodhound SSC has involved much engineering innovation in its development, and used the opportunity to enthuse and engage thousands of young people (yes, including girls!) to study STEM subjects and give engineering a better name with the public who came in contact with it.
It was (and I hope will be again) an inspiration to achieve a goal that was an achievement in itself, and not just the development of a purely commercial enterprise.
Sometimes it helps to see the bigger picture.
Could this be classified as Foreign Aid?
Alan Hone is absolutely correct – the educational aspects of this project far exceed the importance of the LSR goal. The 1000mph record is ultimately unimportant, but the encouragement of thousands of children to consider engineering as an interesting, exciting thing to do is invaluable; albeit it will take a decade or two to see the results. Not only that, but the educational gain will have been achieved relatively cheaply.
This is a total tragedy, not only does Bloodhound represent the best of what engineering is about, i.e. to set a seemingly impossible task and then overcome every single technical challenge, but also the Bloodhound Project has inspired tens of thousands of young people into engineering via the Bloodhound Ambassador Scheme. It cannot be allowed to fail, so Government, our great engineering companies and any high net worth individuals out there, UK and abroad, please get in contact with Richard Noble and Andy Green, put your hands in your pockets and pledge your financial support to the project; your association with the project will payback in multiples. This project is about far more than breaking the 1000mph barrier in a land based vehicle; it inspires a generation into engineering – we cannot let it fail!!
It is not that the Land Speed Record is Unimportant, it is!
It is all the Engineering Development and Expertise that has gone into the Project, will never be fully utilized for other High Speed Ground Transportation or Flight efforts. This will include the Materials side and all the necessary Electronics to make sure it remains on the ground and safe.
All have a bearing in the UK’s ongoing capabilities of extraordinary Engineering Talent and as a “Future Center of Excellence”! The Parliamentary Wallies need to see and understand all of this and fund the “Future”, especially with Brexit, soon to come a reality!
How about crowd funding? I suspect there are enough engineers out there who would chip in for a bit of glory.
This sum is about half of what we waste on the EU every day, and this would achieve something of great significance and prestigious for all of the engineering sector.
Surely some of our iconic names could step to the mark and chip in, its less than pay offs for incompetent bankers.
Is it just me or did the piston engine powered pump, gas turbine and rocket motor combination was over elaborate when 3 small throttleable liquid rocket motors Would have been lighter simpler and safer. Was the prerequisite of this design to extract money out of RR Cosworth etc. I attended the presentation and was suspicious from then on.
Wouldn’t it be better to develop a land speed record for travelling inside a tube? This would build on Tesla’s idea for travelling from city to city in record times and has a lot more significance than an arbitrary , dangerous and quite pointless 1000 mph.
I don’t quite understand ‘why’ they entered Administration?
The story is lacking in giving the true reason. No company ‘needs’ to go into administration unless it owes debt of some nature it cannot cover. If its a case of just running out of fundsw for further work/development then the company can simply go dormant while it seeks further funds?
Additionally, £25million IS a large sum of money given that the company claim R/D is over and they are simply trying to go race it. My concern is where is all this money going?
I appreciate however that it has inspired so many of the younger generation and that in itself is worth it – but to simply throw such large sums of money at a project that is all but ready to put it on the race track is somewhat questionable. Good luck with further funding anyway.
Perhaps the lesson here is that commercial success also requires doing the boring bits, like project management and budget control … ?
What did they expect after the endless delays to the project? I believe this thing was supposed to go for the 1000mph back in 2013! Even allowing for project slippage, to have only cobbled together a run FIVE YEARS later at a speed that road cars can do says it all.
Even as a very interested observer, I was sick of the (ironically) snail-like progress of this money pit by the end.
Bloodhound will go down as a prime example of inept project management, nothing more.
At last someone seeing the wood through the trees. If they made the attempt 3 years ago they would not be in this situation. They dragged it on far to long and in all that time they were paying somebody’s wages. I mean what do they even do for all that time waiting for the attempt 3 years away the cars pretty much already built. An attempt in 2021! Yeah right That would come and pass then it’s would be 2024 . Yeah let’s plough some more into it?
Perhaps a social funding effort is in order I’m sure we can find enough people willing to give £10 or more to be involved in some way and to see this through….
So, is there anyone out there with sufficient knowledge of how to go about gathering the money, persuading the administrators to hang on and transferring the funds? if so now is the time to identify yourself.
Could the team get funding from the National Lottery? The project has great educational worth and the Lottery seem to fund all sorts of schemes.
“having worked for several firms and organisations for which ‘long-range- planning’ was
“What shall we do after lunch!” its hardly surprising. But as long as we permit ‘jumped-up clerks’ masquerading as professionals to remain in power, don’t look for any changes any time soon!
So in the aftermath , what is the lesson future young scientists and engineers will remember?
I hope it is not over yet. If the sky hasn’t yet fallen over us then there is a still dim hope at least. It has already been a very successful project in stirring up the STEM and enthusing youngsters across the whole Country and world. The advancements in technology have also been incredible, spanning from precision instrumentation, materials (advanced composites), controls, vehicle dynamics and stability and propulsion systems. Bloodhound project is not a failure but an incredible ambition, science endeavour and a mighty engineering dream that will last for many years to come. If it doesn’t happen soon, I’m sure the young generation presently in schools will pick up the pieces and will make the great dream true one day! Cheers C