Could Ultra-Fast Travel be Closer to a Reality?

New and improved air and space travel may be here.

Transcript

00:00The key to hypersonic air and space travel could lie in generating a never-ending detonation

00:10that propels vehicles seamlessly into and out of the atmosphere, and scientists may

00:16have just figured out a way to make this possible.

00:19Detonations are powerful explosions that blast outwards faster than the speed of sound.

00:25That's why scientists for so long have wanted to build aircrafts that can harness these

00:29great amounts of energy.

00:31They could enable us to fly from New York to London in under an hour.

00:35However, the problem up until now has been controlling detonations and making them last

00:41more than a few microseconds.

00:43Recently, a team from the University of Central Florida set out to tackle these challenges.

00:49What we're trying to do here is control that detonation.

00:53We want to freeze it in space and harness that energy, said team researcher Kareem Ahmed.

00:59Theoretically, such an explosion could propel aircrafts up to speeds 17 times the speed

01:05of sound, which would get rid of the need to use rockets to carry aircrafts up and out

01:10of the atmosphere.

01:11To do so, the team funneled a mixture of air and hydrogen gas towards a ramp at extremely

01:17fast speeds and used a propulsion system to generate a shock wave that rapidly caused

01:23the mixture to detonate and blast exhaust gas.

01:26Ahmed and his team successfully created a detonation that lasted for three seconds in

01:32a fixed position, confirming that they were able to stabilize the explosion.

01:37Now, the challenge lies in figuring out how to change the air speed, fuel mix, ramp angle

01:43while maintaining explosion stability.