Image covering all that distance in just four hours...And London to New York would take just one hour.
The head of the UK Space Agency has said new technology would have the ability to cut flight times between London and Sydney to just four hours by 2030.
Graham Turnock was speaking on the research being done into creating Sabre engine by Oxford-based Reaction Engines, at the UK Space Conference in Wales this week.
He said: “When we have brought the Sabre rocket engine to fruition, that may enable us to get to Australia in perhaps as little as four hours.”
At Mach 5.4 speeds, flights between New York and London would take one hour, while UK-Australia could be done in four, reports the independent.co.uk.
“The main thing with Sabre is it’s like a hybrid of a rocket engine and an aero engine, so it allows a rocket to breathe air,” said Reaction Engines’ Shaun Driscoll, reports Stuff.
“Rockets really haven’t progressed in 70 years, whereas aero engines have become very efficient.
“So, if you can combine an aero engine and a rocket you can have a very lightweight efficient propulsion system and basically create a space plane. The physics checks out but the challenge is building a test regime.”
Trials of the engine are currently taking place in Denver, Colorado, with plans to start launching test flights by the mid-2020s and commercial flights by the 2030s.
Currently a commercial flight from the UK or Europe to Australia takes around 21 hours.
