Dylan Murray
Long-distance travel could be on the verge of being revolutionized by a brand-new hypersonic jet worth millions of dollars.
The idea of traveling across the world is a dream for many, but it's ultimately a difficult and unrealistic one for most of us.
Beyond the cost, the amount of time it takes to travel across continents can be brutal for people who struggle with long flights.
However, a brand new jetliner is currently in the works, and it's expected to cut long-distance travel time down by insane margins.
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The Stargazer and its super-powered engine are currently being built by Venus Aerospace, a Texas-based company that is attempting to create the fastest passenger airplane in the world.
If the jet comes to fruition, it is believed that it will be capable of traveling at 4,600mph. This would not only make it the fastest passenger plane in the world today, but it would also outpace the now-retired Concorde, one of the fastest supersonic airliners of all time, by a little over 2,500mph.
The best way to measure this speed is to look at how long it takes to travel across the Atlantic Ocean from New York City to London. While the standard time is around seven hours, the Stargazer would take less than an hour to cross the pond.
However, with this incredible innovation comes a ludicrously high cost; the Venus Aerospace team has raised $33 million to build the Stargazer and its engine, which is called the Venus Detonation Ramjet 2000 lb Thrust Engine, or VDR2 for short.
Eric Briggs, the COO of Valentra, a company now partnered with Venus Aerospace, said: “We can’t wait to dig in, make the first one fly, and ultimately perfect an engine concept that has lived mostly in textbooks but never as a production unit in the air.”
While the timeline on the jet itself is still unknown, the engine is reportedly on its way to being testable quite soon.
The practical abilities of the VDR2 will be officially unveiled in 2025, when a hypersonic test drone takes to the sky for the first time.
The Stargazer is not the only high-speed jet currently in the works, as both NASA and Boom Supersonic are currently working on similar – albeit slightly slower – supersonic airliners.