Aviation history is a series of stories, people, machines that, once at a time, set new frontiers to what was possible. First flight, first Atlantic crossing, first supersonic flight…many steps that all passionate remember.
As a matter of fact, behind these achievements, aviation always carried a kind of dream, passion, that drove its heroes and made fans dream.
As for commercial aviation, let’s admit that we haven(t dreamt for a while. Of course, the 787 Dreamliner and the A380 are great aircrafts that carry a part of the dream but have nothing to do with the last “dream-plane” : Concorde.
Maybe things are about to change with two new projets, one by the NASA and the other by Virgin.
Peut être que les choses vont enfin changer prochainement avec deux projets menés l’un à la NASA, l’autre chez Virgin.
The US agency is working on an hypersonic craft that could fly 5 times the speed of sound, cross the atmosphere and would fly from New-York to Syndney in less than 3h (currently 21h). This project was recently allowed a $5 billions funding a year for the next thress years. It’s supposed to be the first step of a bigger picture : a reusable plane able to fly to Mars.
Meanwhile, Virgin and its subsidiary Virgin Galactic are working on suborbital space flights. After two successful tries with prototypes, the construction of their Spaceport recently started.
With $200 000 tickets, flights would seem unafordable for many and cheap for some happy fews. As it’s always been with breakthough innovation….provided passengers pass the physical tests…
