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Superjet Technology Nears Reality After Successful Australia Test (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Yahoo: A two-hour flight from Sydney to London is a step closer to reality after the latest successful test Wednesday of hypersonic technology in the Australian desert. A joint US-Australian military research team is running a series of 10 trials at the world's largest land testing range, Woomera in South Australia, and at Norway's Andoya Rocket Range. Hypersonic flight involves traveling at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5). Scientists involved in the program -- called Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HIFiRE) -- are developing an engine that can fly at Mach 7, Michael Smart of the University of Queensland told AFP. He added that the scramjet was a supersonic combustion engine that uses oxygen from the atmosphere for fuel, making it lighter and faster than fuel-carrying rockets. The experimental rocket in the trial on Wednesday reached an altitude of 278 kilometers and a target speed of Mach 7.5, Australia's defense department said. The first test of the rocket was conducted in 2009. The next test is scheduled for 2017 with the project expected to be completed in 2018. It's only a matter of time before such high-speed transportation technology is implemented into our infrastructure. Last week, Hyperloop One conducted a successful test of its high speed transportation technology in the desert outside Las Vegas.
$8000 first-class seat? Some people do have money to waste.
I stand corrected - I just checked.
New York to London return next week, first class on British Airways: $20,000
remember when NASA actually had a budget to make cool things too?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Because they want to use these things as a stage to take objects into orbit and save on carrying a lot of extra oxygen. The idea of this test is to simulate conditions that the engine is being planned to be used for, which involves going through the atmosphere and then to very high altitude. Level flight has been simulated in a shock tunnel for these since the 1980s (I watched a test in 1987) but rapid change in altitude is a different story.