Some people are dreading long hours of flights. But if you want to visit places or another country, you'll have to endure long hours in a plane.
But here's the good news for frequent flyers, in the future, you can travel from LA to Tokyo in just one hour.
Venus Aerospace unveiled its hypersonic plane through a video rendering. It's called Stargazer, and the Houston, Texas-based company is planning to build it for commercial use.
At a speed of up to Mach 9 or is almost 7,000 mph, the Stargazer will carry 12 passengers. This means that you can fly from LA to Tokyo in just around 60 minutes.
Is Stargazer a Space Plane?
Venus Aerospace described the Stargazer as a "space plane," according to the Digital Trends.
However, "its maximum altitude will be 170,000 feet or around 52 kilometers, far below the Kármán line," as per the Digital Trends report. What's generally considered as the point where space starts is at 328,000 feet or 100 kilometers above Earth.
There is no available information yet when the full scale prototype of the Stargazer will be ready, or when would it be available for commercial use.
According to Venus Aerospace, they are also hoping to create a hypersonic drone. But at present the company is not yet releasing renderings for that particular vehicle.
To help meet Venus Aerospace goal of developing high-speed aircraft, the company has picked up $32 million in private funding together with $1 million from the government, since its founding in 2020.
Aerospace, military, and research and development veterans comprises Venus Aerospace team.
The company is currently focusing on three main areas, which include a "zero-emission, next-generation rocket engine, an innovative aircraft shape, and a leading-edge cooling system that will allow the Stargazer to take off from existing spaceports without the need for any new infrastructure," according to the Digital Trends.
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Venus Aerospace Scaled Fast Over the Last Year
According to Venus Aerospace, over the last year, they had already "scaled fast." In fact, they had "designed and built tech demonstration engine, executed key experiments at hypersonic wind tunnels and propulsion test facilities throughout the U.S., and started a ground test campaign at Spaceport Houston."
Just like a conventional airplane, Stargazer would take off using engines. However, it will then "transition to rockets once at altitude and away from [the] city," Venus Aerospace CTO Andrew Duggleby said to Gizmodo in an email.
The first ground test of Stargazer is unlikely to happen soon. It might happen in 2025 at the earliest. Duggleby said that ensure safety, reliability and performance, the flight testing will not be less than five years.
Colorado-based Boom is another company that works on high-speed aircraft travel. Presently, they are working on the development of Overture. It is a supersonic plane that can fly at Mach 1.7 or twice the speed of present day's fastest airliners. The plane is designed to carry up to 75 passengers.
Although there are still a lot of design work and testing that must be done, United Airlines has already expressed interest in Boom's plan. In fact, in principle, the airline has agreed to purchase up to 50 of the aircraft. They are planning to take them into commercial service in 2029.
