Hour Plane Ride to Anyplace in the World
Upcoming Hypersonic Passenger Travel
Venus Aerospace of Houston
A Houston, Texas based startup Venus Aerospace is developing a hypersonic space plane capable of flying passengers to anyplace in the world in an hour. The company is staffed by top aerospace engineers. The founder and CEO Andrew Duggleby was the head of launch operations for Virgin Orbit, Sir Richard Branson's space company. The hypersonic space plane that they are developing has the potential to revolutionize passenger travel and bring the world much closer together.
Right Out of Science Fiction
The hypersonic transport (HST) aircraft is like something out of science fiction, specifically the space plane in Star Trek. But it is real and is under development. It would take off from a spaceport and travel to the edges of space, where the rocket engines fire-up and propel the HST at hypersonic speeds. Venus' goal is to build a network of highly efficient, reusable, cost effective space planes. They say they will have a full-scale design by 2025 and test flights underway in 2030.
Incredible Aerospace Technology
Venus is currently working on three critical components: highly efficient engines, an innovative aircraft design and a highly advanced cooling system. The company is working on what are called rotation detonation engines, which burn fuel at supersonic speed. The engines produce a supersonic high pressure combustion wave which gives the HST unprecedented amounts of thrust. The aircraft concept is a waverider design, which shapes shockwaves from the plane's high speeds and shoots high pressure air below the plane to increase lift. To deal with the intense heat of hypersonic speeds, the Venus HST design has a metal nose to quickly dissipate heat.
Very Fast Journeys
The mission of this aircraft concept is to get travelers to any place on Earth in an hour. Incredibly, the plane concept is being designed to reach speeds of Mach 9 or 6,670 mph for 5 minutes, then turn off the engines and the plane will glide and propel itself. The developers estimate that landing to the scheduled destination back on Earth would be a process taking 50 minutes. Venus Aerospace hopes to develop the hypersonic space plane to take us on the rides of our lives. To take a look at more news stories like this, go to The Future of Flying
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