By Miquel Ros, for CNN
Updated 2001 GMT (0401 HKT) November 24, 2015
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| cnn.com |
(part)(CNN)London to Melbourne in 90 minutes? Paris to San Francisco in under an hour?
That's travel at 25 times the speed of sound -- or barely enough time to take in an in-flight movie.
Few areas of aviation generate wilder predictions than hypersonic flight -- but a team in Germany might just have cracked it.
Hypersonic means speeds of Mach 5 or over, or more than five times the speed of sound. Supersonic is Mach 1, or the speed of sound.
Since the withdrawal of the Concorde in 2003, commercial aviation has remained purely subsonic, but that could change in the coming decades.
Take new aircraft concepts like the Japanese HYTEX, capable of speeds of Mach 5, or the European Lapcat-II, expected to reach Mach 8.
倫敦飛墨爾本只要90分鐘？巴黎到舊金山不到一個小時？？
飛行速度是音速的25倍，這麼說好了，旅程只需看完一部機上電影的時間。
很少有航空基地可以做出比超高音速飛機更狂妄的預測，但德國團隊做到了。
超高音速表示速度等於或大於5馬赫，或是高過5倍的音速，超音速則是指1馬赫，或是等於音速。
2003年因協和式客機正式除役，商用客機至今都使用亞音速，但接下來的日子中可能有所改變。
新機種概念如日本HYTEX，速度達5馬赫，或歐洲Lapcat-II，更可能達到8馬赫。
Then there's the nascent space tourism industry, with companies such as Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace hoping to take a select few on leisure trips to the edge of space.
Researchers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are taking their own approach.
A team has applied space technology principles to propose what is possibly the world's most advanced hypersonic airliner concept to date.
期待這些新生航空旅遊業，像是Virgin Galactic和XCOR Aerospace等公司，可以將休閒旅遊帶往天際。
德國航空太空中心(DLR)正在進行自己的研究。團隊已成功運用太空科技原則讓世界最先進的超高音速飛機理念得以實現。
The SpaceLiner
The result of 10 years of ongoing research by the Space Launcher Systems Analysis (SART) department at the Institute of Space Systems in Bremen, the SpaceLiner is a revolutionary hypersonic spaceplane concept capable of flying some 50 passengers across the globe at speeds of up to 25 times the speed of sound.
It's based on a two-stage concept, not unlike the Space Shuttle, where both the booster and passenger stages start in an upright configuration.
在不萊梅市的航空組織發射研究分析部門10年不斷研究下，SpaceLiner能搭載50位乘客以25倍的音速速度橫跨地球，是頗具革命性的高超音速太空飛機。
Propelled by 11 rocket engines during launch (nine on the booster stage and two on the passenger stage) the system accelerates into the mesosphere using traditional cryogenic rocket propulsion.
Once the booster stage is empty, the smaller passenger vehicle separates from the booster stage and continues accelerating, flying autonomously, just like an aircraft -- except that it does so while reaching astonishing speed of up to Mach 25.
由11個火箭噴射引擎（9個位於升壓層，2個位於客艙）加上傳統的低溫火箭推進器將飛機推升到中氣層。一旦升壓層空了，較小的機動車會從升壓層分離後再繼續上升，自動飛行，就像飛行器一樣，不同的是他會持續上升飛行，直到達到驚人的25馬赫飛行速度為止。
After reaching a maximum altitude of about 80 kilometers, the passenger stage commences a gliding descent towards its destination.
在到達約80公里高度之後，客艙會開始下滑到目的地。
Not only is the SpaceLiner concept incredibly fast, it's also environmentally friendly.
It uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen (LOX/LH2) propellants so only water vapour is produced.
Most of the flight processes will be fully automated, but there would still be two pilots to monitor all onboard and flight procedures -- and to provide reassurance to passengers.
SpaceLiner不只是出奇的快，還對環境相當友善。他使用液態氧跟液態氫，所以推升過程中只會產生水。
而大部分的飛機將會完全自動化，但仍會有兩個機組員監控所有機上狀況跟飛航程序以安撫乘客。
hypersonic (adj.) 超高音速的
crack (v.) 打開，破裂
subsonic (adj.) 亞音速的，比音速稍慢
nascent (adj.) 新興的
configuration (n.) 結構
propel (v.) 推進
mesosphere (n.) 中氣層，大氣層中的一層
cryogenic (adj.) 低溫的
propulsion (n.) 推進
glide (v.) 滑動
descent (n.) 下降
vapour (n.) 汽化
reassurance (n.) 寬慰
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