From America to Australia in Under 6 Hours : अमरीका से ऑस्ट्रेलिया का सफ़र बीस के बजाय छः घंटे में

From America       to Australia in Under 6 Hours

Just 100 years ago,       getting from America to Europe was a voyage that took several days by       ocean liners. With the invention of airplanes, that travel time was       significantly shortened to under 24 hours. At the apex of the era of transatlantic flight,       the Concorde was able to fly 100 passengers at mach 2.0 speeds from New       York to London in just over 3.5 hours.

Now, the European Space Agency (ESA) just       greenlighted the next stage of modern transportation – the hypersonic       flight. The ESA has approved a new round of funding to project LAPCAT       (Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and       Technologies).

Ignoring its funny name, the new plane will fly at       mach 5.0 speeds (that’s five times the speed of sound!), using liquid       hydrogen engines. The planes will be able to travel from England to       Australia in four hours, carry 300 passengers and even fly to space in       just 15 minutes.

The new kind of engine is being developed by the       British company Reaction Engines, who is said to invest over 60 million       GBP in the development, and are going to start builing a full-scale       prototype engine.

Current jet engines require that airplanes carry       liquid oxygen as a coolant because in speeds beyond mach 3.0 the engines       cannot use external oxygen for cooling. The new type of engine can use       external oxygen freely, allowing it to cool down its engines from over       1,000°c (1,832°f) to -150°c (-328°f) in a fraction of a       second.