Hypersonic aircraft. Five times faster than sound
NASA plans to build a hypersonic passenger plane that can reach a speed of at least five times higher than that of sound, according to British newspaper DailyMail.
The project will use technology similar to those designed for spacecraft that would transport people to Mars, and NASA will provide $ 15 million to achieve this revolutionary aircraft. In June this year, an experimental aircraft X-43A, broke the speed record, managed to approach a speed of about 7 times higher than that of sound.
The project scientists will need to use high performance technologies. "A vehicle of this kind must be extremely light and resistant to extreme temperatures and huge speeds, easy and inexpensive to maintain, and be large enough to not require in-flight refueling. Such a goal is imperative so long as we offer low-cost spaceflight, said in a press release issued by NASA. In June 2010, an experimental scramjet aircraft set a record for hypersonic flight for more than three minutes, reaching a rate six times greater than that of sound.
