Space Plane Startup Promises Los Angeles To Tokyo In One Hour
Space Plane Startup Promises Los Angeles To Tokyo In One Hour
BY TYLER DURDEN SATURDAY, MAY 29, 2021 - 11:00 PM
Modern transportation is experiencing significant upgrades
thanks to transformative technologies. A startup space plane company is
promising hypersonic flight worldwide and travel times to anywhere in about an
hour.
Venus Aerospace is building a passenger
aircraft that will revolutionize the world's transportation sector with
hypersonic flight. The company raised $3 million in a March funding round. It
plans to build a Mach 12 hypersonic aircraft designed to travel at the edge of
space, allowing passengers to go from Los Angeles to Tokyo in one hour.
Traveling in a space plane is sort of like traveling in a
regular plane, except for when the pilot initiates rocket boosters mid-flight
that propels it to the edge of space. The aircraft then glides back into the
atmosphere and can land at any conventional airport.
Two former Virgin Orbit employees started Venus: Sarah Duggleby,
a launch engineer, and her husband, Andrew, who manages launch, payload, and
propulsion operations.
"Every
few decades humans attempt this," Andrew Duggleby told Bloomberg,
as for now, the dream of high-speed global travel is in reach because of new
rocket engine and hypersonic technologies. "This time, it will work."
The Dugglebys say their space plan has more efficient engines,
wings, landing gear, and jet engines that allow it to take off like a commercial
airliner.
Jack Fisher, a former NASA astronaut who analyzed Venus' plans, said the initial blast of acceleration "throws you back in your seat" but soon dissipates because "you get going so fast that you don't even feel it anymore."
Three scale models of the space plane will be tested this
summer. The project is expected to take at least a decade of testing before
commercialization.
If the technology works, Venus will have to decide if the plane
is for commercial or military use first. Already, the husband and wife team,
with a dozen employees, have secured a research grant from the U.S. Air Force.
Sassie Duggleby suggests the superfast space plane is for
"regular people."
Before hypersonic space planes, we suspect supersonic ones
would be commercialized first, at the end of this decade.
The Federal Aviation Administration is already issuing new regulations around
supersonic travel as multiple startups are working on developing supersonic
aircraft.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/space-plane-startup-promises-los-angeles-tokyo-one-hour
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