London to New York - in one hour?

A trans-Atlantic journey of just sixty minutes have been promised since the dawn of supersonic flight, but is it now closer to reality? In late September, a secretive experimental vehicle roared into the clear blue skies above a military base deep within the Arctic Circle in Norway. As the sleek, rocket approached its target altitude of 350km (218 miles), it began to arc back to earth, gradually accelerating to so-called hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 8 – about 9,800km/h (6,100 mph). The test was the fifth of nine planned launches for the Hifire vehicle, which its backers claim “could be a major step forward in the quest for hypersonic flight”, generally regarded as Mach 5 and above. At these speeds, headline writers like to say, we could soon be zipping from London to New York in just one hour.