The Future of Air Travel or a Pipe Dream?

Right now travelling across the globe is achievable but it can also be a pain. It's possible to board a flight in Europe and end up in Australia in less than a day. Of course while that doesn't sound so bad, it sounds worse when you consider that you're sitting in a cigar tube with wings for 22 hours. Now I'm not clausterphobic but I can't fathom sitting on my butt for that long. I get antsy after a few hours and as it is, I like to move around or do something every so often while in flight simply because it helps the time pass faster. There's nothing more maddening than being stuck in a plane for hours on end with nowhere to go and nothing to do. But that could all change very soon if development of a new hypersonic plane goes through.

What hypersonic means in rough layman's terms is faster than supersonic. Where the Concorde could travel at Mach 2 (or twice the speed of sound), the hypersonic jet could go nearly Mach 5 (or five times the speed of sound) thus making the trip from Europe to Australia drop from nearly 22 hours to a mere four and a half hours. Now I can already see people thinking that this will be a wonderful thing once it comes into operation; but therein lies the rub, the jet is still a long way from being in operation. At present, I think most major airline manufacturers (namely Boeing and Airbus) are more interested in making comfort and convenience a priority over speed. Like it or not, travel across the globe will take time and until low-orbit flights or hypersonic travel becomes relatively commonplace, there will not be a mad dash to develop the technology and so long-haul carriers with more comforts on-board will continue to the manufacturers modus operandi.

Even if the technology exists and it is possible to build this jet, is this really the right time for it? With the drive to promote 'green' technology, will there really be a primo market for a jet like the hypersonic jet? At present there are not many supersonic (let alone hypersonic) transports in the air. Part of the problem with the Concorde was the fact that it was limited in the scope of it's supersonic ability by the fact that it could only go faster than the speed of sound over the ocean. Hence there were rarely any supersonic flights across Europe or the United States. The primary reason being that when a plane crosses the sound barrier there is a pretty loud sonic boom and if that is occuring regularly then you know what kind of reaction the public in general is going to have.

Plus there will be undoubted concerns about whether these hypersonic flights will have any significant environmental impact. For example, planners and designers have stated that these planes would follow routes that were largely over water therefore they would have the ability to surpass the sound barrier that much longer. Immediate reaction from the general environmentally conscious public would of course be that there would be significant impact on the environment in the polar regions or that there would be greater air and noise pollution as a result of the jet's usage. Already there are problems and the plane hasn't even come off of the drawing board as yet. I find it a bit funny that such things have a way of happening with the advent of new technology these days but it shouldn't come as a big surprise. I think the jet is definitely a step into the future but hopefully our present won't keep that future from happening.