New hypersonic engine poised to cut London-Sydney flight times to just four hours by 2030s

MSN ^ | 09/25/2019 | Sarah Knapton

[Red Badger]

Tourists could fly from Britain to Australia in just four hours by the 2030s with a new hypersonic engine being developed by UK scientists, the head of the UK Space Agency has said.

Reaction Engines, who are based in Oxfordshire, are in the process of building a hybrid hydrogen air-breathing rocket that will allow a plane to fly at Mach 5.4 - more than twice the speed of Concorde - then speed up to to Mach 25 in space.

Not only would the new ‘Sabre’ engine allow speedier journeys - with a flight between London and New York slashed to just over an hour - but the hydrogen/oxygen engine would be far greener and cheaper than current air travel.

The team is currently trialling parts of the engine in Denver, Colorado, and is hopeful to begin test flights in the mid 2020s, before commercial flights in the 2030s.

The government has already invested £60 million in the engine, which has been matched by Rolls Royce, BAE Systems, and Boeing.

On Tuesday Britain agreed to work more closely with Australia in a ‘space bridge’ partnership and Graham Turnock, the CEO of the UK Space Agency, said that it was appropriate the two countries were moving closer together just as technology was speeding up journey times.

“I really like the concrete sense of a bridge linking us, and when we have brought the Sabre rocket engine to fruition, that may in a sense be the manifestation of that space bridge, enabling us to get to Australia in perhaps as little as four hours,” said Mr Turnock.

“Once you’ve got hypersonic engines operating then that kind of journey time is achievable.

“This is technology that could definitely deliver that. We’re talking the 2030s for operational service, and the work is already very advanced.”

[urtax$@work]

Promising fast hyper travel since Ronnie Reagan!

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/sabre/index