HYPERSONIC COMMERCIAL FLIGHT-2050

Don't let today's anemic airline industry fool you: Supersonic flight will rise again. By 2015, 12 years after the last Concorde flew, Lockheed Martin expects to complete the Quiet Supersonic Transport, a business jet that can zip a dozen hotshots from Chicago to
Paris in as little as four hours. But far more fun will be the "Spaceliner" under development by the German sp ce agency DLR. Funded by the European Commission, the plane will be capable of flying 14,000 mph and delivering 50 passenger  from New York to Sydney in less than 90 minutes—through space. Think of the ship as a modified version of the space shuttle: a two stage vehicle that takes off from a launchpad. "We're not talking about exotic technology," says Martin Sippel, the Spaceliner's chief investigator. "We're taking
existing ideas and applying them in a way that makes economic sense for commercial travel." The idea is that by reducing the technical demands inherent in the space shuttle's design—such as how high and how fast the rig would fly—the Spaceliner could be safer than the shuttle, for a ticket price somewhat higher than a first-class ticket today. Here's how your hypersonic flight would work
Rockets
The Spaceliner would lift off on the back of a rocket powered by liquid hydrogen/oxygen thrusters capable of 25 launches. After separation, the rocket engines would glide to a recovery site, making rapid reuse and refurbishment much less complicated.
Spaceliner's Martin Sippel thinks the turnaround for the entire rig will be one to three days.
Takeoff Within seven minutes,the airplane would reach the lower boundary of space, 62 miles up. At maximum altitude, it would be traveling faster than 14,000 mph—nearly as fast as the space shuttle. Instead of continuing up, it would dip into the atmosphere to
generate lift and travel farther on less fuel. The extreme altitude means the sonic boom won't disturb people on the ground.
Engines
The space shuttle is a hodgepodge of engine technologies: three hydrogen/ oxygen engines on the craft, plus the solid-fuel boosters.
Solid fuel, though more energy-dense, is roughly 10 times the cost of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The Spaceliner doesn't need quite so much thrust, and it has to run cheaper, so it will have just two engines, compared with the shuttle's three.
Cooling
Passing through the dense lower reaches of the atmosphere at many times the speed of sound can heat up the aircraft to 5,400°F. To keep it cool, DLR engineers have invented porous ceramic tiles that would "sweat" water. A major component of DLR's upcoming
research will be refining the ceramics and doing large scale tests at faster wind-tunnel speeds
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