By Chris James
The BOLT II (click here) hypersonic flight experiment will launch Monday night from NASA’s Wallops Test Flight Facility in Virginia.
Hypersonic vehicles, which can fly much faster than passenger jets, would allow passengers to go from Sydney to Los Angeles, for instance, in just a couple of hours.
They could also offer more flexible options for launching payloads into space than conventional rockets and their speed and maneuverability mean they have a range of potential tactical military uses too.
Russia and China already claim to have operating hypersonic missiles, but hypersonic passenger aviation is still a dream rather than reality.
Nevertheless, several types of hypersonic vehicles already exist, including rockets, planetary entry vehicles such as SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and intercontinental ballistic missiles....
The BOLT II (click here) hypersonic flight experiment will launch Monday night from NASA’s Wallops Test Flight Facility in Virginia.
Hypersonic vehicles, which can fly much faster than passenger jets, would allow passengers to go from Sydney to Los Angeles, for instance, in just a couple of hours.
They could also offer more flexible options for launching payloads into space than conventional rockets and their speed and maneuverability mean they have a range of potential tactical military uses too.
Russia and China already claim to have operating hypersonic missiles, but hypersonic passenger aviation is still a dream rather than reality.
Nevertheless, several types of hypersonic vehicles already exist, including rockets, planetary entry vehicles such as SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and intercontinental ballistic missiles....
