Wasn't that Dr. Heywood Floyd? 
Posted on 09/25/2019 8:30:14 AM PDT by 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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Wasn't that Dr. Heywood Floyd?
Sorry, of course you are right.
Yes it was!
And in that 2001 universe the Soviet Union still existed.
I guess they never got the 1991 memo closing up shop!
But the time for a private jet flight from London to Sidney is at least a full day (24 hours).
“You’re still going to be stuck in the TSA queue for three hours anyway.”
The rest of the world will figure this aspect out...our politicians won’t.
Oh, this ought to be interesting. They have been testing these “engine” in England and have determined that the flight time from the UK to Australia is going to be around 4 hours.
The design of the SABRE engine comprises a single combined cycle rocket engine with two modes of operation. The air-breathing mode combines a turbo-compressor with a lightweight air precooler positioned just behind the inlet cone. At high speeds this precooler cools the hot, ram-compressed air, which would otherwise reach a temperature that the engine could not withstand, leading to a very high pressure ratio within the engine. The compressed air is subsequently fed into the rocket combustion chamber where it is ignited along with stored liquid hydrogen.
The wide flammability range of liquid hydrogen, 4% to 74% in air, and the small amount of energy required for ignition necessitate special handling to prevent the inadvertent mixing of hydrogen with air. Care should be taken to eliminate sources of ignition, such as sparks from electrical equipment, static electricity sparks, open flames or any extremely hot objects. Hydrogen and air mixtures within the flammable range can explode and may burn with a pale blue, almost invisible flame.
So if you strolling down the lane, and see a huge blue flame followed by a loud explosion, you’ll know that some of the passengers landed in Australia. Always wanted to go there myself.
rwood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABRE_(rocket_engine)
Red Badger ~ I don’t think so. There will be one going up and one coming down................
I do think so. While above the atmosphere, there will obviously not be a sonic boom (in space no one can hear you scream by), and although there will be one going up and one coming down, that can be done far from land and any population centers...
<Insert obligatory Buckaroo Banzai reference to Yoyodyne here>
One of my favorites! XB=70
Seeking investors now!
That is going to be one really hot airplane. Wonder how they will cool it enough for the occupants?
Oh never mind. That is a mere practicality.
Asbestos Seats.............
AOC’s train would be a lot easier on Muvver Erf.
Of course! I should have thought of that myself!
The thing that killed the Concorde, aside from lack of passenger capacity and high fuel costs, was the inability to travel supersonic over land, which limited it's runs to mostly trans-Atlantic city pairs such as NY-London, Paris-DC, etc.
The reason for my question was if a new airliner could fly hypersonic over land without a significant ground level boom, then London-LA becomes possible. Take off from London, do your supersonic climb out over the Atlantic, hypersonic over the continental United States, descend supersonic over the Pacific, then hang a quick u-turn into LA or San Francisco.
Exactly my vision.
The liberals should be all for it. It can’t be used to provide service to flyover country...
At >100,000 ft, that might not be a problem ...
OTOH, it wouldn’t be more that a week of these flights before some enviroMENTAList would be claiming the over ocean sonic booms are interfering with baby harp seal migration...
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