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Two-Hour New York-Tokyo Flights Coming Soon?

by Terrence O'Brien on December 17, 2007 at 03:40 PM

Two Hour Flights From New York to Tokyo Coming Soon?

Chances are you've never heard of a scramjet, and if you have, we can almost guarantee you've never seen one in action (unless you happen to work for NASA or DARPA). The concept of scramjets has been around for a while -- President Reagan even announced a major scramjet project, the National Aerospace Plane, in his 1986 State of the Union address. Reagan envisioned the scramjet replacing the space shuttle, military bombers and commercial aircraft. The program never got off the ground and was canceled by President Clinton in 1994.

Recent advances, however, have moved the scramjet from the lab to field tests. While researchers have been testing scramjets for a couple years, the most recent tests have been extremely favorable.

Scramjets work by sucking air to a chamber that narrows until the air is so condensed it ignites. Just before ignition, standard jet fuel is injected into the chamber. The lack of moving parts and modern construction materials mean that scramjets can withstand much more heat and force than a standard turbine-powered jet engine. Standard jet turbines would melt around Mach 3, but theoretically scramjets should be viable up to Mach 15, or around 10,000 miles per hour. That means that a two-hour flight from New York to Tokyo is theoretically possible.

Of course, the interest in scramjets isn't just about transportation. The military foresees scramjet-powered intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets around the globe before an enemy would even have a chance to respond. And, of course, America isn't the only one racing for the prize. The governments of China, Australia, and others are in hot pursuit of the first practical scramjet engine.

From Slashdot and Popular Science

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Tags: breaking+news, darpa, nasa, science, scramjet, top

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