How would you like to be able to fly from New York to LA in a half hour? Or maybe New York to Tokyo in under two hours? Well, the first step towards that is the X-43A (also here), which will use a scramjet that to fly at Mach 7 (nearly 5,000 mph!). NASA eventually wants to push the speeds up to Mach 10.
The benefits of the scramjet go beyond just the substantial speed boost. It has no moving parts, is fueled by hydrogen, and it’s only waste product is water. To quote Time: It’s "as different from a jet engine as a rocket was from the steam engine".
Testing begins in May, but don’t think you’ll be taking a hypersonic flight anytime soon thereafter. Estimates say it’ll be 25 years before we’ll even be able to have a manned flight, and my guess is it’ll be another 25 years after that point that commercial cramjet flights will be affordable enough for you and I to take book a flight to have lunch in Sydney and dinner in Miami. But still, the possibilities. Oh, the possibilities. ^_^
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