Scientists and engineers are now developing hypersonic airliners that could drastically decrease the time of long international flights.
With new advancements in technologies and materials, researchers are working on a new generation of supersonic airliners with speeds between Mach 1 and Mach 8, according to NBC.
Boeing announced the design for a plane in 2018, that would be capable of the lower realm of hypersonic speed at Mach 5.
Coordinated by the Polytechnic University of Turin and developed by several European organizations, the Stratofly MR3 is also a game-changer and would hit speeds up to Mach 8 or 5,400 miles an hour.
Although these technologies wouldn’t be ready to be tested outside of labs until 2035, they could slash the amount of time it takes for flights now.
For example, a flight from New York City to Sydney, Australia would only take about three hours. Traveling from Los Angeles to Tokyo would be a little under two hours at about an hour and a half.
“We want to go to Mars but still we have huge distances (separating us) here on Earth,” said Nicole Viola, professor of aerospace systems design at the Polytechnic University of Turin and the project coordinator of the Stratofly via NBC.
“It will be so much easier to travel to distant destinations.”
Featured image via Stratofly
