Superfast cars and fast Internet

by Gushwell Brooks · December 15, 2014

Every now and then one has the good fortune to live out a childhood fantasy. Fortune smiled upon me and sent me to the middle of the parched and hot Kalahari desert of the Northern Cape.

The Bloodhound SSC at completion. The 1000m/ph (1600km/h) car that is to smash the land speed record next year. (Photo: Stefan Marjoram)

Heat and dust are not ordinarily associated with good fortune. Some might even argue that being in the middle of the Northern Cape is most certainly not good fortune at all. But throw together Richard Noble, the Bloodhound Supersonic Car (SSC) team, fighter jets, helicopters, ICT and blistering fast Jaguars and you have a twelve-year-old�s dream in the middle of the desert.

Dave Rowley, Bloodhound SSC�s South African education programme director, said that the story starts approximately seven years ago.

As most men who have a world record, Andy Green � current land speed record holder and the only person to ever travel at supersonic speed on land at 1149,303 km/h in the Thrust SSC�got the urge to top his personal best and went to see the then British defence minister in an effort to �borrow� a classified jet engine meant for a fighter jet. The minister responded with a much expected �buzz off!�.

One of the minister�s top officials, however, saw opportunity where none existed and called Andy and Richard Noble back, telling them that they could have the jet engine, provided they inspired a new generation of engineers and scientists to build jet engines like the one they needed.

So in as much as the Bloodhound team have ambitions of building a 1600km/h car, a car that will be run on the flats of Hakskeenpan in the northern parts of the Northern Cape, they also have the task of inspiring a new generation of engineers, while building it.

Some 6000 British schools are signed on to the programme, which bodes well for the defence official�s wish to have young scientists and engineers inspired to build him better military toys. And there�s an awesome spin-off for South African schools as well.

Dave Rowley heads the education programme here in South Africa, where 700 schools will participate in the programme. Of these, 97 schools are situated in the Northern Cape.

Fr Aloysius Roets, a Benedictine for 20 years and now a diocesan priest, is part of the education team for the Bloodhound SSC team. We visited one of these schools located in a town called Groot Mier, where the school and the church are the only two places that could provide any sort of employment, never mind meaningful employment, in the area.

Fr Aloysius best describes the sense of dearth for the people living in the sparsely populated settlements around Hakskeenpan: �They have nothing else but sun, dust and sin.�

The MTN Foundation not only built a state of the art computer laboratory for the learners of Groot Mier Primary, but Fr Aloysius informed us of how everything at the school was repaired, from the roof to the signage.

The biggest benefit to the school is best summed up by the principal: �Before August 25 we did not know what Google was, but now the children of Groot Mier not only have their horizons broadened by Google, but they can link up to the school in Bristol, the school close to where the actual supersonic car is being built and exchange and share knowledge.�

At the heart of it, we are all still little kids who get giddy at the thought of a car travelling at 1610 km/h, fighter jets that can�t keep up and helicopters that follow the action from the skies.

But the grown-up in me is very pleased with the fact that a bunch of kids in the Northern Cape, kids who hardly have access to water, let alone to the world, now can see what the rest of the world is getting up to via the Internet.