Sweet, so I have to wait until I'm a senior citizen to see the cool tech?

I'm sure something better will come along, 2050 is a long ways off and this is based on current knowledge and technology, all it would take is one big leap between then and there for this to be outdated. it would be great to see a scramjet used in a commercial liner though.

Turbofans for takeoff, rockets for spped boost, then scramjets..

Presumably the "zero emmissions" wil come about because it uses hydrogen as fuel, so it's emissions will be water vapour........even though water vapour is the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and possible climate effects of contrails are under investigation.

Hydrogen was used as a fuel in some of the earliest jets (Hans v. Ohain used it in his early experiments), and perhaps by then mineral oil based fueld will be uneconomic for various reasons...so maybe the propulsion technology will be available.

but at the very least the environmental effects of pumping tons of water vapour into the stratosphere will undoubtably come in for much scrutiny before anyone lets it hapen.

it's an interesting kite to fly

Based upon the image with so few windows, they don't anticipate transporting many people. Considering this technology and its costs, it would be another toy for the elite so it wouldn't need to haul many.

Originally posted by miniatus
Sweet, so I have to wait until I'm a senior citizen to see the cool tech

I'll be a very old man (or maybe even dead) when we get there...thanks for reminding me.

And since it is meant to replace the high end niche that the Concorde occupied...who's going to enjoy it? Aside from the wealthy...

Now I feel depressed. Balloon just popped. Oh well, cost nothing to imagine the feeling of flying in one of those!!

The price of a National Aero Space Plane (NASP) was estimated at two billion per plane. That high cost and the Rand independent eval put a stop on the program in 1993. The R&D of that time had theoretical maximum speed of mach 17, the original goal by NASA was mach 25.
Slush hydrogen was the fuel and designed to snake all around the airframe helping to cool at higher speeds.
I wonder if they read the Rand eval? It is on their website for free. Might save them the trouble of going ahead with this.