The SpaceLiner could travel at Mach 25 — or London to Melbourne in 90 minutes
Alternative transportation continues to be one of the most pursued technologies of this century. Some of this emerging tech – the hyperloop, for example – could be ready in as little as five years, while other new forms of transportation, like mainstream commercial space travel, would take a bit longer.
One of these new space contraptions comes to us from researchers at the Institute of Space Systems in Germany. The team has proposed the SpaceLiner, a jet that could travel at a speed of Mach 25 by harnessing the power of a booster that rockets the passenger portion of the hypersonic jet into the mesosphere.
The team at the German Aerospace Center calls the SpaceLiner a form of hypersonic "rocket-propelled intercontinental passenger transport." The term "hypersonic" refers to any aircraft that can surpass Mach 5, which the SpaceLiner does by a factor of five.
The SpaceLiner has been under development for over 10 years and will be capable of flying 50 intrepid souls high up into the earth's atmosphere. Like current iterations of the Space Shuttle, the craft will start in an upright position and then jettison the booster rocket once the proper altitude and speeds have been reached.
The altitude in question here is an astonishing 50 miles in the sky! After experiencing forces of up to 2.5G in the first ten minutes, the experience would level off. It would then transition to the passenger stage, and glide down from flight towards its final destination.
In order to keep costs low, both the booster rocket and passenger vehicle are re-usable. The booster's engines could last 25 take-offs and landings, while the rocket itself could go for at least 100 cycles. Similar to a normal aircraft, this means that the cost of the machine can be capitalized over time and not just be a sunk cost accomplishing only one hypersonic journey. The jet still wouldn't come cheap. In comments to CNN, researcher Dr. Olga Trivailo said that it would still cost up to $32 billion just to reach prototype stage.
By offering a produce for the high-end of the business travel segment, there is also an opportunity to reduce the overall cost of space travel through the commercialization of new technologies. In a description of the product, the German Aerospace team writes:
"The fast, intercontinental travel application of space technology would not only attract the business and leisure market, would, as a byproduct, also enable to considerably reduce the cost of space transportation to orbit."
The booster rocket also uses liquid oxygen and hydrogen as fuel, which only produces water vapor. This makes the rocket more friendly to the environment than current available technologies. The downside to this speedy intercontinental technology? It might take up to 30 years before any of us are embarking on our first hypersonic commercial flights.