Hypersonic 51A “Waverider” from US Airforce. Image: wikimedia.

Faster: that’s the quest of transport. From wheel to rail, from sail to steam, from wing to rocket, the history of transportation might be summed up in one word: speed. Speed changes economies: when the Transcontinental Railroad connected the United States, travel from coast to coast went from several months to just 10 days. Two new developments may set a new pace. Boeing announced development of a hypersonic jet with the speed of 3,800 mph, cutting the current 7 hour New York to London trip to 2 hours. Not fast enough? Why not hop a ride on BFR that may fly from New York to Shanghai in 30 minutes, when it is not landing on Mars, predicted by 2022, by Elon Musk of SpaceX.

Musk, Elon. “BFR: Earth to Earth.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0.

Wattles, Jackie. “Boeing’s hypersonic passenger plane could get you from New York to London in 2 hours.” 27 June 2018. CNN tech. http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/27/technology/future/boeing-hypersonic-plane-concept/index.html.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License