Venus Stargazer Hypersonic Jet
Many firms are aiming to build the next hypersonic passenger aircraft. None of them are using the same technology as Venus Aerospace's Stargazer. It uses conventional jet engines for takeoff, then transitions to a rotating-detonation rocket, spinning at 20,000 rotations per second, to reach speeds of Mach 9. The aircraft is meant to carry roughly a dozen passengers distances of nearly 7,000 miles in about an hour, at an altitude of 170,000 feet — high enough to see the blackness of space and curvature of the Earth. The company is currently working on a 20-foot prototype drone that it hopes will reach Mach 5, with the construction of a full-size prototype to commence after that.
