New York to London in 2 hours

[Seismic Anamoly]

In our Lifetime?

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By Michael Coren

CNN

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Posted: 10:35 AM EST (1535 GMT)





(CNN) -- Fifty-seven years after combat pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, NASA will make a second attempt Saturday at flying an aircraft at 5,000 mph -- about seven times Mach 1, the speed of sound.



The space agency's dogged pursuit of extreme speed, officials hope, will ultimately make space flight easier to accomplish.



NASA will roll out the X-43A, capable of reaching speeds more than Mach 7, in a test flight over the Pacific Ocean. The Hyper-X, as it is called, could also give rise to commercial planes that zip passengers between London and New York in less than two hours.



"It's relatively simple in its concept," said Griff Corpening, chief engineer for the X-43A program. "It's incredibly challenging in its execution.... [That is] where 40 plus years of research comes in."



The $250-million Hyper-X program has already attracted the interest of the Air Force and private aerospace companies such as Boeing. But dreams of civilian spin-offs are at least 20 years away, said NASA officials, who are betting the program will first lead to a more durable, cheaper workhorse for the space fleet.



The diminutive, 12-foot-long X-43A test craft will ride atop a Pegasus booster rocket launched from a converted B-52 bomber off southern California. The flight will test aspects of a design to allow planes to overcome the pull of Earth's gravity by reaching 18,500 mph, also known as escape velocity.



During the test, the 49-foot-long booster rocket will propel the X-43A to about 3,700 mph before the experimental plane detaches from the rocket and flies under its own power using a hydrogen-powered "scramjet" engine, the first such test of the technology.



The actual powered-flight is expected to last about 10 seconds and reach Mach 7 before gliding for six minutes and plunging into the Pacific Ocean.



The test will gather crucial information for engineers and scientists trying to make the X-43A NASA's platform for reusable spacecraft and hypersonic planes, or those traveling above Mach 5.

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Whooooosssshhh.....

[bbchris]

That would be great! I'd love to not sit in a plane for 12 hours to go to Europe!!! Or the States!!

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