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The US space agency's experimental hypersonic research aircraft, the X-43A, could one day revolutionise long-distance travel and space launches. The unpiloted 3.7m-long vehicle uses a scramjet to reach a design speed in excess of Mach 7, about 8,000 km/h. Scramjets burn hydrogen but take their oxygen from the air which is forced into the engine at very high speed. A scramjet operates by the supersonic combustion of fuel in a stream of air compressed by the high forward speed of the aircraft, as opposed to a normal jet engine, in which fan blades compress the air.
